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Library of The Theological Seminary 


PRINCETON » NEW JERSEY 


Ca 


PRESENTED BY 


John Stuart Conning, D.D. 
PS 0S 940 Le eGo oo 
Tobenkin, Elias, 1882-1963. 
God of might 





Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


-httos://archive.org/details/godofmightOOtobe 





GOD OF MIGE 


BY 


ELIAS TOBENKIN 


AUTHOR OF “WITTE ARRIVES,” “THE 
HOUSE OF CONRAD,” ETC. 


“Earth, mother of us all...I cry on you.” 


AESCHYLUS : Prometheus Bound. 





NEW YORK 
MINTON, BALCH & COMPANY 
1925 


COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY 
MINTON, BALCH & COMPANY 


Second Printing, February, 1925 


Printed in the United States of America by 
Jj. J. LITTLE AND IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK 


To 
My FatHER 


ia 


, fe 
Hebe 


i 





CHAPTER 
I. SamMueEt Discovers THE WORLD . 


VITl. 


CONTENTS 


BOOK ONE 


A CHILD OF THE PALE 


BOOK TWO 
NEW EARTH 


LINCOLN 

DREAMS AND FAIRIES 
Gop 

SPRING CAME . 

SCORNED Mite tiaed es Ciencias etry 
Rosa Karp—OTHERS 
PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE 


BOOK THREE 
WHAT IS LIGHT 


JEW AND CHRISTIAN . 
JESSIE GRANT . : 
“FATHER, WHAT Is LIGHT?” 
Gotp Gives His BLESSING 


PAGE 


37 
53 
61 
70 
82 


95 
109 


115 
128 
140 
151 


CHAPTER 


XIII. 
XIV. 
XV. 
XVI. 
XVIT. 


CONTENTS 


BOOK FOUR 
FAITH OF THE FATHERS 


SILENCE 

THE RoLi-CALL 
THe Locust FIELD 
A Rasgi’s DAUGHTER 
FORGIVENESS 


BOOK FIVE 
CLOSING GATES 


A TENANT 

THE Bic CHuRCH 

FATHER OF MERCIES! 

Ties oF BLoop 

PALE ALE Cy Nets inte die 
GOD! OF MIGHD yet Sang han 


PAGE 


165 
173 
183 
IQI 
203 


217 
225 
241 
247 
256 
264 


BOOK ONE: A CHILD OF THE PALE. 





GOD OF MIGHT 


CHAPTER I. 
SAMUEL DISCOVERS THE WORLD. 
b ies 


T was sometime between the ages of three and four 
that little Samuel discovered the world. Simulta- 
neously with this discovery came the awareness of his 
race; an awareness that life and living to a Jew was an 
entirely different matter from what it was to all other 
people. 

The world which little Samuel discovered was a 
typical village of the Russian pale. Its three thousand 
inhabitants were evenly divided between the peasants 
who tilled the soil, and the Jews who were the mechan- 
ics and merchants of the community, the tailors, shoe- 
makers, blacksmiths, on the one hand, and the grain 
dealers, grocers and hardware men, on the other. 
The Jews, too, kept the inns where the peasants drank 
their vodka. Between these two classes geographic 
lines were sharply drawn. The Jewish homes clus- 
tered about the market place where their stores and 
warehouses were located. The peasants lived on the 

3 


4 Gop oF MIcHT 


outer streets, where they had more room for their 
barns, granaries, and threshing floors. 

To one side of the market place, on a small eleva- 
tion, towered the Greek orthodox church, its green 
roof with gilded cupolas and crosses sparkling in the 
distance and visible from a great way off. It was sur- 
rounded by beautiful grounds and oak trees, and was 
set off from the rest of the town by stone hedges. 
The synagogue, a much older and less pretentious 
structure, stood at the crossing of two narrow, gray 
streets in the ghetto. There was not a tree nor a blade 
of grass in front of it. 

The dead were divided as sternly as the living. 
The Jewish and the Christian cemeteries lay parallel 
to one another, but there was a distance of nearly 
two miles between them, and different streets led to 
each. The Christian funeral processions started from 
the church. The Jewish funerals passed the syna- 
gogue. 

At sundown, on Fridays, an old Hebrew with a 
powerful voice would hasten through the Jewish quar- 
ter, stopping at every street corner and calling in a 
quaint singsong: “In-to-the-Synagogue!” At the 
sound of the man’s voice every form of manual labor 
would cease in the ghetto. Stores and shops would be 
put under lock and key. In the homes there would 
be a hasty donning of Sabbath clothes. Women would 
light their Sabbath candles and the men and boys 
would start off for the synagogue. 

At the same hour on Saturday in the Greek Ortho- 


% 
SAMUEL DISCOVERS THE WORLD 5 


dox church the bells would begin to boom. Every 
peasant, wherever he happened to be, would take his 
hat off and make the sign of the cross. The ringing 
of the bells proclaimed that the week’s toil was at an 
end and Sunday was approaching. 

The town sloped into the Niemen, the great White 
Russian River, whose murmuring never ceased. In 
the spring and summer the river was covered with 
rafts of lumber, huge trunks of oak and pine, that 
were piloted to German ports by swarthy men and 
boys. On the opposite bank of the river were fields 
and, a mile or two beyond them, the forest, a huge, 
massive shadow, looming against the sky. 


II, 


They—his father and his mother—kept a hardware 
store in the center of the Market Place. His father, 
David Wasserman, was tall and thin. Ever since 
Samuel remembered anything his father had been 
frail. David’s ample beard covered a hollow chest. 
Samuel’s mother, Sarah, by contrast with her hus- 
band, was only of medium height, and plump of figure. 
Her skin was white and her alert brown eyes were 
always kindly. It was his mother who was the main- 
stay of the Wasserman hardware business. 

Every Thursday was market day and the peasants 
from the neighboring villages would come to town and 
offer their grain, flax, seeds, eggs and fowls for sale. 
They brought with them their horses and cattle. 

The peasants were moujiks, and moujik was a vile 


6 Gop oF MIGHT 


word, something no one would care to be called. Nev- 
ertheless the peasants interested little Samuel greatly. 
They interested him for two reasons: the peasants 
had horses and they had no schools. Their children, 
little boys like himself, not yet five, were riding horse- 
back. And there was no going to school for them. 
They played until they were old enough to go to work. 

To little Samuel this seemed an ideal arrangement, 
and the nearer his fifth birthday approached—the 
limit set by his father to his schoolless existence—the 
more ideal it appeared. He was in fact beginning to 
doubt whether all he had heard about the free life of 
the peasant children could possibly be true. It prob- 
ably wasn’t. Most likely the peasants, too, had 
schools for their children of which they, the Jews, 
did not know. He would make certain; he would in- 
vestigate for himself. 

His planned excursion into the non-Jewish section 
of the town was, however, postponed by little Samuel 
from week to week. It was not a thing to be hur- 
ried. To be sure, he knew where the peasant quarter 
lay, he had been there two or three times with his 
father. But there was the rub. His father knew all 
about the Christians. On opening the gate to a peas- 
ant’s hut David knew how to quiet the dog; how to 
get the animal to run up to him and sniff the hem of 
his long coat. And when he entered the peasant hut 
his father knew just what to say to the woman and 
how to talk to the men. David spoke the peasant 
dialect. 


SAMUEL DISCOVERS THE WORLD 7 


After several weeks of planning and wavering Sam- 
uel decided that the matter would brook no further 
postponement. He must act. Late one July after- 
noon, therefore, when he knew that every Jewish boy 
above the age of five was in school, he ran to the in- 
visible border line that marked the Christian from the 
Jewish quarter, stopped, hesitated an instant, clenched 
his teeth together, and plunged into the peasant ter- 
ritory. 

The street was clear of people. The haying season 
was at its height, and the men and women were in 
the fields. He passed two, three, four houses, and 
there was not a sign of life about them. The flap-flap 
of Samuel’s bare feet upon the sand ceased. He had 
come to the seventh house, and here there were chil- 
dren, a dozen or more. They were gathered in a 
knot in the yard. Some of the children were of an 
age with him, but most of them were older—of school 
age. There were several little girls among them, too. 
The girls and boys were playing together. And how 
they played! Several of the bigger boys had between 
them a dog, a big, shaggy animal, whose head they 
were trying to get into a bridle improvised by them 
from a piece of rope. The bridle did not fit, and they 
kept turning and twisting the animal’s head from side 
to side, meanwhile whooping and yelling, as peasants 
do when felling a tree or engaging in other equally 
important or risky work. The girls looked on with 
breathless interest. 

At first Samuel watched them from across the 


8 Gop oF MIGHT 


street, then he drew nearer, and at last came up to 
the very gate and leaned against it. He did not re- 
member how long he stood there; it was so new and 
entrancing. He came to only when he observed the 
eyes of one of the little girls riveted upon him. She 
tittered and the entire crowd looked in his direction. 
The boys were shouting something to him, but he did 
not understand them, and stood as if transfixed. Only 
when several of the youngsters made a lunge in his 
direction did he awake to the danger. 

He was on his feet in an instant. He could run as 
fast as his pursuers, and soon reached the invisible 
boundary line. But he did not stop there. The 
peasant lads pushed their pursuit no farther and con- 
tented themselves with throwing stones in Samuel’s 
direction and howling after him in a chorus: “Jew, 
Jews Jew wee 

Iil. 

Samuel kept his adventure secret. The question, 
however, as to why it was necessary for Jewish chil- ~ 
dren to go to school, while the peasant lads could stay 
home and play and do as they pleased, troubled him. 
He finally asked his father about it. 

David Wasserman took his son’s question seriously 
—he took everything the child asked him seriously— 
and answered: “Jewish children go to school because 
they must know how to read the law.” 

“And why must they know how to read the law?” 

“Because,” David argued patiently with his little 
son, “because a Jew must get ready for the other 


SAMUEL DISCOVERS THE WORLD 9Q 


world, and one can prepare for the world-to-come only 
by reading the law and obeying its commandments, by 
being pious.” 

“How will the peasants get to the other world, 
then?” 

“They won’t get to it,” David answered. ‘Peasants 
don’t go to paradise. They have no life after death. 
That is why they don’t need to go to school. Of what 
use would school be to them?” | 

Samuel had his answer. So there was a world-to- 
come. Going to school meant preparing for this other 
world; accumulating a “portion in heaven,” in para- 
dise. How envious the peasant lads would be if they 
knew that he, little Samuel, whom they jeered and 
flouted, was to enter paradise, while they would never 
so much as get near it. Some day when he grew up 
and could speak their tongue he would tell them this. 
Wouldn’t they be sorry! 

But that “some day” was a great way off. And in 
the meantime the harvest season was at hand and 
the peasant children were having a glorious time. 
They were out in the fields all day and toward eve- 
ning they would come riding home atop ot a load 
of unthreshed grain, or aloft a haywagon. 

As Samuel watched the peasant lads go by, their 
bodies half hidden in fragrant clover or the gold 
sheaves of oats or wheat, his little heart would fill 
with yearning. At times it even grew rebellious, and 
he would be on the verge of doing something rash, 
desperate ... Thus on two or three occasions he 


1 ae) Gov oF MIGHT 


stood ready to exchange his portion in the world-to- 
come for a ride on a haywagon, but as nobody came 
to strike a bargain with him, the mood passed. 

Meanwhile the harvest was over, and the Jewish 
New Year was approaching. The atmosphere in the 
ghetto was one of solemnity which even little Samuel 
could not escape. Yes, life was a serious business. 
After the New Year came the Day of Atonement. 
And after that the Feast of the Tabernacles. Then 
the long Russian winter began—and school... 

Samuel was mentally preparing himself for the lat- 
ter EVENE 573i). 

Iv. 

He was learning new prayers and invocations daily. 
He could not help learning them. The prayer book 
was the text used by his teacher. There were prayers 
for every occasion. One could not take a drink of 
water, or a bite of apple, without having to recite 
a prayer. There were prayers for week days and 
there were prayers for the Sabbath. There were in- 
vocations to be uttered on the first day of the month 
and there were prayers to be recited on seeing the 
new moon. And all of them had to be learned by 
heart. For each there was a reward in the world-to- 
come. The more diligently one applied himself to 
“the book,’ the more magnificent one’s portion in 
heaven would be. 

One’s portion in heaven ... It was everlastingly 
dangling before Samuel’s eyes and made him patient 
and submissive... The ghetto school day was 


SAMUEL DISCOVERS THE WORLD II 


long; summer or winter it was nine to ten hours on 
week days. On Fridays there was a half day off in 
honor of the Sabbath. 

School was conducted in the living room of the 
teacher’s house, or in someone else’s living room, 
hired for the purpose. It was stiflingly hot in the sum- 
mer; in the winter the windows were covered with 
ice. But whether it was a cold winter morning, or a 
sultry summer afternoon, Samuel yielded himself up 
to his book with equal steadfastness and patience. 
He would not trifle with his chances in the world-to- — 
COME.) vi 

After a time it occurred to him to wonder whether 
it was not possible to omit a prayer now and then, 
without having it noticed by anyone, anywhere. Of 
course he could not inquire about such a thing. He 
would not confide such thoughts to anyone. But 
the teacher one day chose his lesson for Samuel from 
among the rear pages of the prayer book, where the 
holiday services were to be found, the services for 
the New Year and for the Day of Atonement—and 
Samuel’s questionings were answered. It could not be 
done. There was a “Book of Records” in heaven, in 
which was written down every good deed and every 
dereliction. Nothing escaped this heavenly system of 
bookkeeping, neither acts, nor words, nor thoughts. 
And there were no loopholes, no wriggling out of sins 
committed. Under each record, whether good or bad, 
appeared one’s own signature. The Lord God him- 
self had this book of records in his safekeeping. He 


12 Gop oF MIGHT 


was ‘‘witness and recorder” . . . And He was “judge 
and arbitrator,” “calling to mind all things forgotten.” 
No, there was no trifling with prayers ... 

By the time he had reached the age of ten he had 
changed schools and teachers three times. He knew 
the five books of Moses and was reading the prophets. 
Simultaneously with this he began studying the 
Talmud. 

Vv. 

In the twilight hour on the Sabbath, when it was 
still too early to strike a match and usher in the week, 
Samuel’s father and his uncle, his mother’s brother, 
Jacob Gold, would talk together in whispers. At first 
it was the apprehensive manner in which they talked 
that caught Samuel’s attention. Later the subject mat- 
ter began to interest him, and he would stop in his 
childish dreaming and listen to their conversation. 

A czar had died and a new czar had ascended the 
throne. The new czar, it seemed, did not like the 
Jews. Neither the czar nor his advisers liked them, 
and new decrees were contemplated against the He- 
brew population of the realm. It was about these 
decrees that the subdued conversation of Samuel’s 
father and his uncle turned in the hour between sun- 
set and the coming out of the stars, when the day 
of rest was taking its lingering departure. 

Uncle Jacob was the younger of the two men in 
years and in spirit. He was as tall as David, but 
more robust. While Samuel’s father was versed ex- 
clusively in Hebrew lore, his uncle could read and 


SAMUEL DISCOVERS THE WORLD 13 


write the Russian language as well. The peasants had 
a wholesome respect for Jacob Gold because of this, 
and whenever one of them received any sort of sum- 
mons or document, he would search out Jacob Gold 
in his tobacco shop and give it to him to read and 
interpret. 

In matters of religion, too, Uncle Jacob was more lax 
than David. He wore no sidelocks, and the ends of 
his thick, black beard were evenly trimmed. He went 
to the synagogue only on the Sabbath and on holidays, 
and spoke with good natured raillery about the ex- 
cessively long prayers which the Jews uttered three 
times a day. “I wonder,” he would say, “if God does 
not get weary of all this bald flattery.” He also made 
light of the many ghetto ceremonials. 

Jacob Gold subscribed to a Hebrew journal pub- 
lished in St. Petersburg, and in this journal Samuel’s 
father and uncle followed the progress of the decrees 
against the Jews, week in and week out, for years. The 
decrees were being drafted . . . The draft had been 
advanced to such and such a ministry ... It had 
been sent back for revision ... It had been revised 
and would now be laid before the czar . . . Now the 
czar had signed it . . . And now it was a Ukase.. . 
The Ukase was published throughout the empire .. . 

The Hebrew journal from St. Petersburg was bring- 
ing weekly lists of cities whence the Jews had been 
ordered to depart. The date for carrying out the order 
had arrived . . . The Jews were being driven by the 
thousands, by the tens of thousands from the vil- 


14 Gop oF MIGHT 


lages, from the towns where they were born, where 
their ancestors had lived before them for generations, 
for centuries ... 

More decrees came. 

These concerned themselves with the Jews living 
within the pale. The number of Jewish business 
places must be restricted. This last decree applied to 
Samuel’s town. It concerned his own family ... 
When the season came for the various Jewish mer- 
chants of the town to renew their licenses, ‘difficul- 
ties” arose ... These difficulties, however, were 
overcome by handsome “‘gifts” to the city and district 
officials. 

Nevertheless a cloud descended upon the Jewish 
homes. The import of these decrees had reached the 
peasants. The old men discussed the matter gravely. 
The young men leered ... 

Rumors came like the rumbling of distant thunder. 
There were riots . . . In far off provinces Jews were 
being robbed and pillaged. There were murders. 
Jews were being murdered ... 

Weeks later the Hebrew journal from St, Petersburg 
confirmed these rumors ... The names of the dead 
were given, with their ages and occupations. 

People sighed, and then consoled themselves: it was 
far away. 

But it was coming nearer . . 

One day Samuel had occasion to pass the town hall. 
It bordered on the Gentile quarter. A number of 
peasant boys were loitering in front of the place. 


‘ 
SAMUEL DISCOVERS THE WORLD I5 


“They are driving out the Jews in the third province 
—did you hear about it?” one of the young peasants 
was saying to his neighbor, with a wink at Samuel. 

“‘To be sure,” the other peasant replied. ‘They are 
driving them out, of course they are.” 

“Kill a Jew and pay a fine of three kopecks,” a 
third quoted a popular saying, and the whole Coney 
laughed uproariously. 

Samuel lurched to one side as if he had been shucks 
The laughter of the peasants pursued him. . 

The campaign against the Jews was extending. It 
was spreading into the pale. Into the cities of the 
pale ... It embraced all Russia... The Hebrew 
journal from St. Petersburg had become a roster of in- 
dignities. Existence was becoming a nightmare. .. . 

A strange perspicacity descended upon Samuel. 
Things became more meaningful than they had ever 
been. There was significance in everything, in words, 
in looks, in faces. There was significance in the way 
things were said or left unsaid. His father, his uncle, 
people all about him frequently left things unsaid. 
They spoke in broken, half finished sentences, as if 
ashamed of someone, as if ashamed of each other. 

Fear lurked in them, numb, paralyzing fear... 


Vi. 


Samuel helped in the store. David’s health was 
growing worse. On market days he would stand along- 
side his father and carry out the latter’s orders. 

After every market day, when Samuel had waited 


16 Gop oF MIGHT 


on score upon score of peasants, and had listened for 
the hundredth time to the word “Jew”—that Jews 
were infidels, that they were robbing the Greek ortho- 
dox peasants, that the peasants would some day rise 
and cut the throat of every Jew—Samuel would lie 
awake hour after hour through the night. 

On such sleepless nights the feeling of living in a 
cage would come over him. He was in a prison. The 
town was a prison. The world was a prison. He was 
chained 30...) Bound) oy on) Helpless) oir 

He spoke about this to his uncle. Samuel was no 
longer going to school, and he frequently sought out 
Jacob Gold in the latter’s tobacco shop. An intimacy 
had sprung up between uncle and nephew. 

Gold listened to Samuel in silence. 

“That feeling of being a prisoner, of living in a 
cage,” he said thoughtfully, ‘that is something every 
Jew has to get used to. One becomes accustomed to 
it... You, too, will become accustomed to it in 
time ei 

But it was hard to become accustomed. Matters 
were growing worse daily. The insults were becoming 
sharper. It seemed to Samuel that things could not 
go on that way much longer. Something would have 
to happen. <A miracle perhaps. Deliverance. Or 
death. 

No miracles came, but the spring did come. The 
peasants were busy in the fields from sun-up to sun- 
down. They would be busy all through the summer. 
The tension ceased. Into the ghetto homes a cheer- 


SAMUEL DISCOVERS THE WORLD 17 


fulness returned. Engagements were announced, wed- 
dings planned .. . 

Then in a flash the old fear came back, intensified 
a thousand fold. 

Word had come that in the largest Greek orthodox 
cathedral in the province theft and sacrilege had been 
committed. The poorboxes had been broken open and 
robbed, and a number of the most sacred ikons had 
been stripped of their jewels and precious stones. The 
enraged populace ascribed the crime to the Jews. 

The governor of the province had issued orders 
to the Christian population to refrain from violence. 
But if the thief, or thieves, were not quickly appre- 
hended, the governor could not guarantee that the 
peasants would not disobey his orders ... The Jews 
in the capital decreed a three days’ fast. 

The following day groups of peasants began gath- 
ering in the market place. The Jews kept indoors. 
There was no word from the capital, however, and 
the peasants went home. But the next morning the 
crowds were even larger. ‘There was still no word 
from the capital, and this day, too, passed unevent- 
fully. The tension, however, had been great. Many 
of the peasants were impatient. The third day there 
were rumors of an impending riot; it was to break 
in the night... 

A little before closing time that evening Samuel 
fumbled under the counter in the store and wrapped 
something in a sack. When his father was looking 
the other way he slipped out, carrying the bundle with 


18 Gop oF MIGHT 


him. As he was retiring for the night he slipped the 
awkward bundle into his bed beside him. David ob- 
served this. 

“What have you there?” he asked. 

Samuel did not answer. 

David came up and felt the sack. There was a 
brand new ax in it. 

“What is this?” he gazed at Samuel in alarm. “What 
does it mean?” 

Samuel burst into tears: “It means that I will not 
be killed without killing in return. Whoever comes 
here to murder us will have to face me with this ax,” 

“Heaven forbid,” David exclaimed, and began to 
plead with his son to put away the ax. But Samuel 
was hysterically obdurate—and won out. He went to 
sleep with the ax by his side. 

There was no disturbances during the night. Early 
the next morning word came from the capital that 
the thief had been apprehended. He was not a Jew 
at all, but a _ half-witted son of the church 
deacon. 

The news spread quickly and no more mobs formed. 
The peasants resumed their work in the fields. The 
Jews went about their business once more. 

At home that evening David dug out an old Hebrew 
volume and for a long time searched its worn yellow 
pages. When he found the place he wanted, he called 
samuel over to his side. Together they recited a 
prayer prescribed for those who were in danger of 
death, but had escaped with their lives . 


SAMUEL DISCOVERS THE WORLD 19g 


Vit. 


In the Sabbath twilight, during the hours between 
sunset and the coming of the stars, Samuel’s father 
and his uncle Jacob talked now about America. The 
whole town talked about America; rich and poor 
talked about it. 

The Hebrew journal from Petrograd, too, had 
something about the New World in every issue. Mar- 
velous things were written concerning the far-off coun- 
try and its freedom and equality. It seemed, accord- 
ing to the writers, that in the New World the words 
of the prophet concerning “the last days” were com- 
ing true ... The wolf and the lamb were lying down 
together ... In America men of all nations and of 
all races were living side by side in brotherhood .. . 
Christian and Jew had forgotten their differences .. . 

The exodus to America had begun, was in fact in 
full swing. From the capital of the province large 
numbers of Jews were leaving for the New World. 
Jews were going to America from other cities. They 
were going from the neighboring towns .. . 

One of the richest men in Samuel’s home town had 
put up his house for sale. Another was selling his 
place of business. The answer in each case was: 
America. They were going to America. Uncle Jacob 
went about as if ina dream. One day he announced 
that he had found a purchaser for his tobacco shop. 
A few days later the store was sold. 

Samuel’s father disapproved of this. His mother 


20 Gop oF MIGHT 


wept when she thought no one saw her. Jacob was 
her only brother, and if he emigrated she would never 
see him again. Considering her husband’s state of 
health, for them to go to America was out of the ques- 
tion. 

At the close of the summer an “agent” arrived. 
Money was paid over and an agreement reached. The 
party of prospective emigrants was to start immedi- 
ately after the Jewish festivals. The “agent” was to 
see the men through from the nearest railway station 
to Hamburg . . . They were memorable holidays... 
The whole town seemed to be leavetaking ... 

On a raw, windy Saturday night in the last days of 
September, ten men, all of middle age or under, quietly 
slipped out of the little town by the Niemen. Jacob 
Gold was one of them. 

Two weeks later word was received that the entire 
party had crossed the border safely ... 


VITt. 


The town was changed, the people had become dif- 
ferent. There was scarcely a family in the Jewish 
quarter that did not have some one ‘‘across the sea,” 
or on the way there. There was a restlessness in 
every home. 

The streaks of gray stood out violently in David’s 
beard. Only a little over a year had passed since his 
brother-in-law had left with the first party of emi- 
grants for the New World, but to David it seemed as 
if a whole generation had come and gone since that 


SAMUEL DISCOVERS THE WORLD 21 


time, and that he belonged with the generation that 
was dead... 

Samuel was still with them, but he was no longer 
of them. The boy’s thoughts were with his uncle in 
America. The time, David was aware, was fast com- 
ing when he would not be able to keep him back any 
longer. He would have to let his son go to 
America . 

America . . 

David hardly knew whether to curse or bless the 
word. That far-away country was a gift of God to 
the distressed and harrowed of his race. But to 
him ... From him it was to take his only son for- 
ever... Yes, Samuel would be lost to him. . 
He could never follow his son across the sea. No, 
not at his age, with his health ... America would 
take the lad and mold him after her own pattern; he 
was so young... Even at this distance America 
was molding his boy. It was molding the whole 
community... 

Ever since David had known the town, the post 
office had been a place to visit on rare occasions only. 
The postmaster, with his luxuriant side whiskers, black 
during his youth but now completely white, had in 
the past been largely an ornamental figure. With the 
district inspector, the priest, and a retired army doc- 
tor who lived on a nearby estate, he helped form the 
town’s official circle. 

But all this had changed within the year. The post 
office had become the hub about which the life and 


22 Gop oF Micut 


activities of the town were turning Three times a 
week mail came from the capital and on the after- 
noons when the post arrived long lines of people 
formed in front of the government office. They were 
waiting for letters from America... 

Jacob wrote frequently, and his letters brimmed 
with enthusiasm. He had no thought of returning to 
the Old World, to Russia. America was his for good 
and aye. But he would not take his wife and children 
over—yet. He let his family in on a little secret. New 
York was not all of America. The country was im- 
mensely big, a whole continent. There were other 
cities, big cities, in the interior. There was Chi- 
cago ... He had set his heart on Chicago... But 
it was a costly journey, and as soon as he had saved 
up sufficient money for it he would start. 

Again and again in his letters Uncle Jacob reverted: 
to Samuel. The boy should be allowed to go to 
America as soon as possible. He would not remain in 
Russia anyway, so why waste his best years there? 
The younger he came to America, the greater his 
chances for success would be. 

After each of these letters from his brother-in-law, 
David would go about in a daze. But to Samuel these 
letters were like wine. He soared in the clouds. 
America had captured his heart and mind... 


IX. 


The clock struck twelve. Samuel turned his face 
to the wall, determined to fall asleep. The store was 


SAMUEL DISCOVERS THE WORLD 23 


to be opened earlier than usual the next morning— 
it was the biggest market day of the year—and he 
was to open it. He was doing all he could to lighten 
his father’s work in the short time that remained till 
their separation ... Separation. . 

He was again caught in a whirl of painful, tender 
sensations ... The blue strip of paper upon which 
his name was written in foreign characters was.danc- 
ing before his eyes. It was the steamship ticket Uncle 
Jacob had sent him, and it had arrived with that after- 
noon’s mail—a registered letter. Every eye in the 
post office had been upon him when he was asked to 
sign his name in a book. Everyone surmised the im- 
port of the packet with the multitude of foreign seals 
and stamps which the postmaster, in person, handed 
him. 

Yes, he was going to America... 

Since the afternoon the impending Journey had be- 
come crystallized into something hard and lumpy in 
his throat. The separation from his parents would 
not be easy; he was just realizing it. They were 
separating forever. Forever ... He would live in 
America the rest of his life. He would die there ... 
Children would be born to him, and they, too, would 
die there . . . Generation upon generation would be 
born and die—and all would be cut off from his par- 
ents. His parents. And Miriam. . 

Miriam! How had she come into his thoughts? 
What had se to do with this? ... 

Miriam... 


24 Gop oF MIGHT 


Strange that he had not become aware of her ear- 
lier ... She had been clerking in the dry goods 
store across the street from them for over a 
year, and he had-~been seeing her every day. Some- 
times two or three times a day ... She would run 
into their store frequently ... Strange that he had 
never thought of her before ... 

He was conjuring up her form: the clinging of her 
dress, the tightness of her bosom, the delicate white- 
ness of her neck ... There was a look of eager, 
mysterious expectancy in her deep, black eyes. Her 
lips bore a half-formed smile, as if she were in pos- 
session of a great secret, a secret which she alone 
knew. ‘There was a continual glow in her cheeks, as 
if she were blushing at something steadily. What was 
she blushing at? What was the secret her half-opened 
lips were hiding? 

When he returned from the post office with the 
steamship ticket that afternoon, their store had 
quickly filled with people. The green slip of paper 
went from hand to hand. Miriam too had come in 
and had gazed at it. Samuel had noticed her... 
He had seen her black eyes become distended with 
fear and her face grow pale. Why had she grown 
pale? 

A tolling of bells aroused him from his dreams, and 
he sat up and listened. It occurred to him that per- 
haps the ringing was only in his ears. It must be near 
one o'clock, and he had not yet closed his eyes .. . 
But no—bells were tolling. Muffled cries of ‘Fire, 


SAMUEL DISCOVERS THE WORLD 25 


fire,’ came in the distance. He reached out for his 
clothes. 

Another cry of “Fire,” this time under their very 
windows. People were running in the street, talking 
excitedly . . . His father was calling to him. Every- 
one in the house was up, dressing. Samuel rushed 
into the street. The fire was at the other end of 
town. Their house was not in immediate danger, but 
the store was. The market place was already swarm- 
ing with haphazardly dressed people. Water carts 
were being wheeled into position and pails distributed. 
Some men had climbed to the roofs of the one story 
structures and were splashing water upon them. 

Samuel ascended to the roof of their store and his 
father, who had by this time arrived, was reaching 
up to him pail after pail of water. They stood there, 
fighting the falling cinders for more than an hour. 
Then the wind veered, driving the clouds of flame 
and smoke toward the open fields, and the blaze sub- 
sided. 

Day was breaking and men were returning from 
the scene of the fire telling about it. A dozen peasant 
huts with their barns and granaries had gone up in 
the flames, but the fire was under control now. There 
was no further danger and Samuel climbed down from 
the roof of the store. In the street below he came 
face to face with Miriam. 

She was fully dressed and was keeping watch over 
her employer’s store, while the latter went home to 
ascertain how things stood there and to reassure his 


26 Gop oF MIGHT 


family. This she explained to Samuel’s father, and 
David thought this extra caution entirely in place. 
Fires were treacherous and Samuel, too, had better 
remain an hour or so longer near the store while he, 
David, went home. 

When his father had left, Samuel sat down on the 
steps of the store to rest. The sun was not yet out, 
but the atmosphere was growing paler. On the square 
were clusters of peasants, with their carts and cattle, 
their wives and children, who had already arrived for 
the fair and looked as if they had come a great 
distance. 

Samuel was thinking that this was the last great 
fair that he would see and participate in. In a short 
time the peasants would be out of his horizon for- 
ever. All this would be out of his life: the store, 
the town, the people . . . Other people would fill their 
places. Other towns, other cities ... 

He was wondering about those distant cities and the 
“other people .i ci. 

Miriam came up and stood beside him. 

He did not stir from his place. He was limp: The 
presence of the girl filled him with a vague uneasi- 
ness. It was as if he were going about arranging 
things, putting them in order, and she followed after, 
mussing them up again, throwing them together helter 
skelter). \.%. 

Miriam was speaking. She adored summer, she 
was saying. It was such a relief, after the long, dreary 
winter. But the fires were driving her to distraction. 


SAMUEL DISCOVERS THE WORLD 27 


Every year the same story: as soon as summer came 
there were fires. 

The girl was not going back to her own doorstep, 
and Samuel felt embarrassed. He moved to one side 
to make room for her. Miriam hesitated and then sat 
down on the steps beside him. 

“T was still er ”” she was saying, “when I He 
the bells ringing.” 

“T wasn’t sleeping either.” 

“T suppose,” she said, “it was the journey to America 
that was keeping you awake. Are you going soon?” 

Her voice had dropped to a whisper, and her head 
inclined toward him. He was aware of the heaving 
of her chest. 

“Soon,” he answered faintly. 

He was again wondering how it happened that he 
had never before taken notice of her. 

“In about two months?” Miriam continued in the 
same low voice. 

“In two months—or sooner,” Samuel said, lifting 
up his head so that their eyes met. 

They gazed at each other mutely for an instant. 

In the east the sky was reddening. The sun was 
rising. Peasant carts were coming from every 
direction. 

‘“‘And you'll never come back?” There was a catch 
in the girl’s throat. Imperceptibly she leaned toward 
him. 

“No!” His voice was thick. 

“Oh,” she cried out, and extended her arms as if 


28 Gop oF MIGHT 


to grasp something. She was weeping. Samuel caught 
her hand, but she tore herself away and ran. 

He rose unsteadily. His thoughts were like slow 
moving vehicles. They were getting into each other’s 
way, cluttering his mind. 

What had he done? What had happened? He 
tried to think. Why had Miriam run from him? 
Where had she run to? He took a few steps forward. 
She was nowhere to be seen ... Nowhere... 

His mother was coming. Sarah was dressed and 
ready for the day. In her hand she had the large iron 
keys. She was going to open the store that morning. 
His father was lying down and he, Samuel, too, must 
go home and get an hour’s sleep or he would be tired 
during the day—the most important business day of 
the year. 

He was glad to be relieved and walked away rapidly, 
but not in the direction of his home. He sought out 
one of the remotest streets in the town. He had not 
been on that street in years but he picked out the 
house in which Miriam lived at a glance. 

It was a small, gray cottage whose windows were 
not more than three feet from the ground. The shut- 
ters were closed. 

Samuel passed the house twice, three times. There 
was no sign of Miriam. He turned back and walked 
slowly away. 

md 

They were to leave Hamburg at eleven o’clock in 

the morning, but it was not till six hours later that the 


SAMUEL DISCOVERS THE WORLD 29 


steamer was finally loosed from its moorings and began 
snorting its way into the waters of the Atlantic. It 
was a mellow August afternoon. The city and the 
harbor were enveloped in a golden haze. Samuel, 
leaning against the side of the ship, watched the masts 
and spires recede until they became one fantastic blur. 
He was both sad and exalted. 

The sun was setting, sinking into the sea. It was 
Friday evening . . . At home at this hour they were 
inaugurating the Sabbath. His father, in his black 
gabardine of imported cloth, was on his way to the 
synagogue. Jews everywhere were on the way to the 
synagogue ... 

Jews everywhere... 

His exaltation gave way to dreaming ... Dim, 
bearded figures seemed to be hovering, swaying before 
his eyes . . . Distant lands and ancient men. These 
men were his forefathers. They were Jews... 
There was an endless procession of Jews ... They 
were marching, pitching tents, and getting under way 
again ... Always marching ... The Plain of the 
Mamre ... Egypt, Canaan, Babylon... “From 
India even unto Ethiopia” . .. Spain, Russia... 

In each of these lands his ancestors had lived... 
From each they had been driven, exiled ... Every- 
where Jews had been marked, branded, set apart .. . 

Night had fallen. There was no moon, and the sea 
and the atmosphere had fused into one ink-like mass. 
Samuel was peering into the darkness. The dream 
shadows had disappeared. 


30 Gop oF MIGHT 


The sea . . . He was on the sea . . . He was on 
the way to America. The Jewish stream was flowing 
to America and he was flowing with the stream . 
He had left the soil of Europe. The last filaments of 
land had faded from the horizon some time ago, and 
the next land they would see would be in the New 
World. 

It would be the soil of America . . 

Strains of music reached him. In another part of 
the ship there was dancing. People were pushing in 
that direction. Samuel overcame a vague hesitancy 
and started for the music and the dancing. 

The bulk of the passengers on the steamer were 
German and there were few women and children 
among them. Most of these emigrants could be divided 
into two sharp groups: young unmarried men and 
women who were going to America to find work, to 
build homes and order their lives and future there, and 
aged couples who were going to the New World to 
pass their last years with their children, their sons and 
daughters who had preceded them. 

At one end of the deck a space had been cleared. 
A man played an accordion and another a violin. A 
few couples were dancing. The onlookers had ranged 
themselves about the dancers, some sitting, others 
standing, while still others were hanging on to the 
masts and riggings and cheering lustily. There were 
screams of girls, laughter, and sharp repartee. Samuel 
stood watching the flushed dancers and the noisy on- 
lookers wide-eyed. He had never seen so much spon- 


SAMUEL DISCOVERS THE WORLD 31 


taneous mirth with so little to call it forth among his 
own people. 

After a time it occurred to him that he was the only 
Jew there, and he furtively swept the company with 
his eyes for ominous signs . . . He would go at the 
first sneer or frown, but there was none. An easy 
cameraderie pervaded both the dancers and the on- 
lookers. People shoved and jostled each other good- 
naturedly. He was shoved with the rest—there was 
no malice toward him . . . Once a neighbor turned 
to him with an enthusiastic exclamation about one of 
the dancers. Samuel did not understand him and 
gazed in embarrassment. His neighbor surmised his 
feelings and smiled encouragingly, as if to convey to 
Samuel that it did not matter, that where they were 
going they would all be alike—strangers .. . 

Nevertheless his mood was changed. He was con- 
scious of the difference between them. His ghetto 
garb was weighing heavily upon him. The vague fear 
he had to overcome before joining the crowd returned. 
He lingered a few moments longer and then walked 
off by himself. 

Earlier in the day he had noticed several Jewish 
families from Poland and Roumania. He looked 
around for them now, but they were nowhere about. 
They had evidently been put up in a different part 
of the ship. He had been assigned to a cabin with 
nine other men, none of them of his race. He sought 
out his cabin. 

Stretched on his berth, with eyes closed, his thoughts 


32 Gop oF MIGHT 


wandered homeward. The figure of his father over- 
shadowed all other memories. David had wept as he 
had given him his parting embrace, had wept openly 
and unashamed .. . “I shall never see you any more,” 
he had mumbled again and again, as if the repetition 
of these words, the facing of the whole, fateful truth, 
were lessening the pain of parting from his son. 

He was trying to recall his father’s bent figure, every 
detail of it, when Miriam rose before his eyes... 
Miriam ... She stood there in place of his father. 
He gazed at her as if through a veil. 

Since the night of the fire he had looked for her 
oftener but had seen her less. He was busy preparing 
for the journey, and his parents seemed as if they 
could never have enough of him in those last weeks. 
Miriam, too, seemed to be busier than ever, though 
he did not know why. The few times they had met 
she seemed serious and preoccupied, and acted as 
though she were in a great hurry . . . He seldom saw 
her laugh now. Several times he wrote letters to her, 
long letters, but after carrying them in his pocket for 
two or three days he destroyed them... 

A few days before he left he had seen her walking 
alone across the market place, late in the evening, and 
came up to her. She was very pale, and his heart was 
beating rapidly. They strolled toward the church and 
walked around the church grounds. It was a place 
used by lovers as a tryst, and that gave him a strange 
thrill. His heart was full, but their conversation was 
commonplace. She asked about his journey; he 


SAMUEL DISCOVERS THE WORLD 33 


answered . . . He was looking for the proper phrases 
to tell her what he felt . . . But just as it seemed to 
him that the right words were coming, they perceived 
people in the distance, and he was silent. This was 
their last meeting alone .. . 

He was composing a letter to her. He would mail 
it as soon as he got to America, as soon as he had 
crossed the ocean ... But no, he would not write 
to her yet . . . He would wait until he was earning 
money, six or eight dollars a week . . . Then he would 
take a photograph of himself, in nice new clothes, an 
American photograph, and would inclose it with the 
letter . . . Yes, a letter and a picture from Amer- 
aes A al 


¥ 


Bint 
f 


oe ar : 
Witte 


vy 





BOOK TWO: NEW EARTH. 


ey 





CHAPTER II. 
LINCOLN. 


die, 


N the year 1899 the city of Lincoln resembled a boy 

of thirteen who has suddenly shot up to the height 
of aman. Its large, sprawling frame, which was ulti- 
mately to enable it to hold a population of forty thou- 
sand, was there. It was, however, all too scantily 
filled out by the bare twelve thousand inhabitants 
which the city then numbered. 

It had numerous and long streets, but the buildings 
on them were sparse. There were large stretches 
close to the heart of the city without any habitation, 
and then, on the outskirts, one would run into a 
cluster of homes, forming a little village all its own. 

One such detached little community at the northern 
extreme of the city took the name of North Lincoln. 

North Lincoln liked to think of itself as a distinct 
entity. It had a school and a chapel, and on a given 
signal trains going to and from the city could be 
stopped. Its half a hundred families were an exact 
replica of the population of the city. On the one 
hand there were several streets occupied by modest 
story and a half cottages in which lived a miscellaneous 

37 


38 Gop oF MIGHT 


assortment of draymen, milkmen, quarry workers, 
masons, horse jockeys, and the like. On the other 
there were two or three little streets on which reared 
themselves the spacious and imposing residences of a 
number of Lincoln’s best known citizens. 

The banker, Mr. Erdahl, lived in one of these, and 
was driven to business every morning in a surrey. 
Mr. Thomas Norton, director of Lincoln’s musical 
conservatory, was a neighbor of Mr. Erdahl’s. Farther 
on the same street, in what was half a city home, half 
‘a farm, lived Mr. Kroncke, Lincoln’s leading coal 
dealer. ‘There were a half dozen others of equal 
standing and reputation. “ 

The meeting ground of the “east” and “west” of 
the community was the neighborhood store, run by 
one James Emmerich and popularly known as ‘“Em- 
merich’s.” There were no saloons in North Lincoln 
proper, and this gave the community a certain moral 
hauteur. It also kept Emmerich’s a bit more crowded 
on certain hours and occasions. 


II. 


Late one October afternoon in the year 1899 Doctor 
Henry Stedman Gilmore and Mrs. Gilmore, on their 
way home from the city, stopped in at the neighbor- 
hood store for some purchases. The place was 
crowded, but their presence was at once noted, and 
Mr. Emmerich came up to greet them. 

Dr. Gilmore was the pastor of Lincoln’s new Con- 
gregational Church. He and Mrs. Gilmore had come, 


LINCOLN | 30 


only a few months before, from New England, and 
were among the most recent additions to North Lin- 
coln’s aristocratic quarter. The doctor had accom- 
panied his wife on her shopping tours on two or three 
occasions previously, and Mr. Emmerich was always 
flattered by the appearance of the minister at his 
store. He waited on Mrs. Gilmore ahead of several 
other customers. | 

“T’ll have it sent up directly,” he said, when the 
order was completed. 

“Never mind sending it,” the minister returned, “we 
shall take it along.” 

Emmerich cast a glance to the rear of the store, 
nodded, and a boy of seventeen, with quivering fea- 
tures and a tense, nervous look, came up to his side 
at a rush. 

“Make a nice parcel,” he said, pointing to the sev- 
eral bags, and with a nod to the minister and his wife, 
he was off to another part of the store. 

Dr. Gilmore watched the boy deftly putting the 
packages together and smiled approvingly. 

“You seem quite adept at it,” he said. 

The youth looked up quickly, observed the smiling 
faces of the man and woman before him, flushed, and 
lowered his eyes again. 

Emmerich, at the other end of the counter, caught 
the minister’s smile and noted the embarrassed face 
of his clerk. He came over quickly. 

The boy was an immigrant, he explained to Dr. 
Gilmore, and understood no English. He was only a 


40 Gop oF MIGHT 


few weeks from the Old World and it was his first 
day in the store, in Lincoln, in fact... 

At these words the minister’s face lighted up with 
sympathy and thoughtfulness ... Perceiving this 
and desiring to serve his distinguished customer in all 
he could, Emmerich leaned over the counter and added 
in a lowered voice: 

‘“‘A Hebrew.” 

‘“‘“A Hebrew?” the minister repeated. “Indeed!” 

“This young man is a Hebrew,” Dr. Gilmore whis- 
pered to his wife, and the two surveyed the youth 
before them as one does something unusual—rare . 

The parcel was done and the clerk retreated noise- 
lessly. Dr. Gilmore took the package and he and Mrs. 
Gilmore started. Emmerich followed them to the 
door. There the three lingered while the grocer im- 
parted to the minister briefly what he knew concerning 
the immigrant and how the boy had come to work 
for him. 

‘“‘And what did you say his name was?” Dr. Gilmore 
asked. 

‘Wasserman, Samuel Wasserman,” Emmerich re- 
plied. | 

“Wasserman—Waterman,” the minister uncon- 
sciously translated the name. ‘‘He looks like a bright 
young man, your Mr. Waterman.” 

“IT suppose,” Mrs. Gilmore put in thoughtfully, “‘it 
is being away from home and family at such an early 
age that makes one bright.” 

“T suppose,” her husband agreed. 


LINCOLN AI 


Two or three people in the store had caught snatches 
of the conversation, and directly Mr. Emmerich was 
behind the counter again, they asked him about the 
new clerk. He repeated what he had said to Dr. Gil- 
more, but with one modification. He now gave the 
boy’s name as Waterman, as the minister had called 
him. 

It was in this manner the residents of North Lincoln 
had become aware that a Jew had come into their 
midst. 


III. 


Emmerich’s new boy was in the next few days taken 
cognizance of by every man, woman and child in 
North Lincoln. The story told by the store-keeper to 
two or three people was elaborated upon and embel- 
lished. 

According to this story an itinerant Hebrew peddler, 
coming from the upper part of the state and headed 
for Chicago, had stopped in at Emmerich’s that morn- 
ing to purchase some bread and a box of sardines for 
lunch. With the peddler was a boy, a bright looking 
lad. Emmerich inquired about the boy. He turned 
out to be the nephew of the elder Hebrew and a recent 
arrival from the old country. Questions elicited the 
information that in the Old World the boy had worked 
as a Clerk in a store. Emmerich had a keen eye for 
just such newcomers—they were dependable and 
cheap, and he hired the boy on the spot. 

Samuel was eyed curiously on every side. Due 


42 Gop oF MIGHT 


notice was taken by the residents of North Lincoln of 
the fact that he was different from themselves; that 
he had come from a remote country in the Old World, 
and was not a Christian like the rest of them, but a 
Hebrew, an Israelite .. . 

The degree of difference, however, was variously 
construed. To some of the younger men and women, 
and more especially to the boys and girls, this differ- 
ence resolved itself chiefly into a matter of language. 
The clerk did not speak their language, nor the lan- 
guage of their parents. He was neither German, nor 
Scandinavian, but Russian. 

As soon as he had mastered their tongue, 
he would be like themselves, would become one of 
them ai 

To the older people the difference was more conse- 
quential, went deeper; it was a matter of religion. 
The Hebrews worshiped differently. They accepted 
the Old Testament only, and their Sabbath was not 
on the first, but on the seventh day of the week. 
Moreover, they had special injunctions with regard 
to their diet. That was quite understandable. There 
was a Seventh-day Adventist living in North Lincoln— 
Mr. Shire was his name—and there were a number of 
other Seventh-day Adventists throughout the state. In 
one or two towns they were even numerous enough to 
have a church of their own, and they worshiped on 
the Sabbath instead of on Sundays. Also they ob- 
served the Mosaic laws with regard to meat eating, 
and used the flesh of such animals only as “chew the 


LINCOLN 43 


cud or part the hoof” in accordance with the Old Testa- 
ment injunction. They ate no pork. 

Mr. Shire, Lincoln’s only Seventh-day Adventist, a 
retired farmer of nearly eighty, was a venerable man 
with the head and beard of an apostle. His speech 
was soft and his smile kindly and tolerant. There 
was a suggestion of loneliness about his aged figure, 
for he did not intimately associate with other Chris- 
tians and did not go to any of the churches in the city. 
The postman delivered several religious papers to him 
weekly. He was greatly respected in the community. 

It was with Mr. Shire and with the cult he belonged 
to that Samuel was promptly associated in the minds of 
a number of old people from among Emmerich’s cus- 
tomers. Emmerich himself, who had come from Ger- 
many aS a young man, was aware of more subtle 
distinctions between Jew and Christian, but mh his 
knowledge to himself. 

Like the city he lived in, James Emmerich was 
Spare and wiry. He was a man of forty-five, with 
yellowish blond hair and a mustache that hung down 
like a curtain over his mouth. He had married late 
in life, his wife was busy with their young children, 
and he had experienced much trouble with his help in 
the past twelve months. He had been without a 
clerk for two weeks when Samuel appeared on the 
scene. 

Emmerich listened to the naive speculations on the 
part of his customers over Samuel’s religion and kept 
his peace. He had known religious differences to 


44 Gop oF MIGHT 


stir up bad blood, and he did not wish to lose the 
Jewish lad. 

Samuel was giving every promise of becoming a first 
rate clerk. He still walked about the store like a — 
deaf mute, but he was at home among the sacks and 
crates, the boxes and barrels. Emmerich was de- 
lighted and was on his trail constantly, explaining, 
teaching. The boy absorbed things like a sponge. 

One morning Emmerich missed Samuel’s presence. 
He looked about and discovered him in a corner of the 
store, in the rear. Samuel was taking down cans and 
jars, wiping the dust from them, scrutinizing their 
labels as if he were trying to extract something from 
their appearance and the printed characters on them, 
and then putting them back in their places. Inci- 
dentally, when he was through, the shelves presented 
a neater, more attractive appearance than before. 

Emmerich came up to him. 

“What are you doing?” he asked in German. Ger- 
man was their medium for extended conversation. 

“Getting acquainted with the stock,” Samuel re- 
plied, without interrupting his work. 

Emmerich reflected for some moments. 

“Ves,” he said finally, “that is a good way to learn 
the stock. Go right ahead.” 


IV. 


Winter had settled upon the town. Snow was 
creaking under foot and in the store the stove was 


LINCOLN 45 


going all the time. Every morning Samuel filled the 
box beside it with wood and in the late afternoon it 
had to be filled again. People thronged the place all 
evening long. Some brought with them their kerosene 
cans as an excuse, others came without any excuse; 
none seemed in a hurry to leave. Sitting or standing, 
people crowded about the stove, talked and played 
jokes upon one another until closing time. 

Samuel moved about among them, noiseless and 
alert. There was a preoccupation in his face and 
eyes, as if the business in hand was only a trifling © 
part of the things that weighed upon him. No matter 
how jolly or boisterous the crowd became, there was 
not a twinkle in his eyes. His frame was strong, but 
had not yet outgrown its boyishness; it was still im- 
mature. Not so his head, however. His head was 
that of a man, grave and serious. 

Now and then people commented on this. They 
talked and wondered about the boy, about his family 
in the Old World, about his country, about the He- 
brews . . 

The Jews had become an important topic of con- 
versation. Coincident with Samuel’s appearance in 
North Lincoln there came a wave of sympathetic 
writing about them in the public press. Numerous 
stories of their persecution in Russia and of their 
fleeing to America were current. A prominent bishop 
in the East urged a warm welcome for these refugees 
and excoriated the Czar for his un-Christian treatment 
of the Children of Israel. The sermon of the bishop 


46 Gop oF MIGHT 


was making the rounds of every country weekly in 
America. 

One day the discussion of the Jews at Emmerich’s 
ended with the disclosing of a long forgotten incident 
in local history. It seemed that Samuel was not the 
first Jew to seek to establish himself at Lincoln. There 
had been others before him. In fact, there had been 
a time when a number of Jews—German Jews—had 
lived in the city for some years. Old man Warnock 
brought this incident to light. 

Mr. Warnock, a Civil War veteran, who along with 
his very vivid recollections of the war had preserved 
his soldierly carriage, was an institution in North Lin- 
coln. He was one of the two or three oldest settlers. 
By trade a carpenter, he no longer followed his occupa- 
tion regularly, taking only odds and ends of jobs, and 
doing them leisurely. His children, all but the 
youngest, a girl of twenty, were married. The girl 
was working in a bake-shop and earning her living. 
He had an acre of ground upon which he raised vege- 
tables, kept chickens and a cow, and sold milk. This 
income, together with his pension from the govern- 
ment, kept Mr. Warnock and his wife in limited 
comfort and in a state of half retirement. 

He dropped in at Emmerich’s on an average of five 
or six times a day. 

As Mr. Warnock recalled it, the first Jews came to 
Lincoln shortly after the Civil War. They were the 
brothers Max and Louis Ottendorf. They were fine, 
capable merchants, and opened a clothing store. Of 


LINCOLN 47 


the younger of the two brothers, Louis, Mr. Warnock’s 
memories were especially vivid. Like himself, Louis 
had served through the war, and they had marched 
side by side in many a Decoration Day parade. Many 
a suit of clothes had he bought from Louis, and good, 
honest clothes they were. 

After the Ottendorfs other Jews had come. Mr. 
Warnock knew less about them. But about the year 
1873, he recalled, there was a sufficient number of 
Hebrews in Lincoln for them to be considering the 
forming of a congregation of their own. There had 
been an item in the paper about it at the time. 

From that date on, Mr. Warnock’s memory of the 
Jews was hazy. It appeared that shortly after Mr. 
Schmedemann acquired the property in which the 
Ottendorf store was located, and they moved. When 
he next heard the names of the two brothers it was 
in connection with Chicago. Of the remaining Jews 
he recalled nothing. 

The mantle of the Ottendorfs, with the grateful 
memories of them which Mr. Warnock again and 
again warmed over, was falling upon the shoulders of 
Samuel. When speaking of the two brothers and 
praising their integrity as merchants and their kindly, 
charitable deeds as citizens and neighbors, Mr. War- 
nock invariably gazed over to where the boy happened 
to be, as if linking him up mentally with them . 

To all of which Samuel was quite oblivious. He 
was too much engrossed in himself to note what looks 
were cast in his direction. The boy was putting in 


48 Gop oF MIGHT 


every spare moment at the shelves, changing, rear- 
ranging, toning up things. Emmerich feigned complete 
indifference to what Samuel was doing, but his long, 
straight mustache frequently hid a smile of satisfac- 
tion. 

At the end of two months the store looked fresh and 
rejuvenated like a man who, after a long, hoary winter; 
has finally cast off his heavy, slatternly garments and 
taken a much needed hair trim. There was not a can, 
jar or bottle that had not gone through Samuel’s hands 
and found a place in his memory. The labels and 
inscriptions on sacks, boxes and barrels had become 
to him the key to the life of the people about him, 
the dictionary of their language. He was daily learn- 
ing something about each. 


V. 


The week before Christmas Samuel helped with the 
delivery. The lad Emmerich employed for the pur- 
pose could not manage the distribution of the holiday 
trade alone. Samuel again came to the assistance of 
the boy a few days before the New Year. There was 
a joyous bustling in the homes he visited, an atmos- 
phere of elation, as if everyone had unexpectedly come 
into possession of a great fortune. Whenever an oven 
door was opened or slammed tight, odors of cooking 
and baking assailed his nostrils. His mother was in 
just such a mood and made just such preparations 
before an important holiday, the Passover, or the 
Hebrew New Year. 


LINCOLN 49 


People greeted him kindly, the elder women being 
almost maternal in their solicitude. The weather was 
so cold outside. Wouldn’t he have a hot cup of coffee 
and some cakes? Samuel muttered his thanks and 
moved on hastily. 

Thoughts of home and family, which since his 
coming to Emmerich’s had left him, as if frightened 
away by the unwonted atmosphere and by the inten- 
sity with which he applied himself to his job, were 
returning. 

A wistful yearning for the village by the Niemen, 
for the people in it, for his parents, for Miriam, 
gripped him. He took orders and filled them with 
automatic correctness, while his thoughts roamed and 
his heart was heavy. 

He was glad when New Year’s Eve finally came 
and he could go to his boarding-house with the prospect 
of being alone with his dreams and musings. He slept 
badly that night, and the whole of the next morning 
he was composing a much postponed letter home to 
his father. 

Dinner was served in the mid-afternoon, and there 
were only two others at the table with Samuel, a 
young Norwegian named Al Twesme, who drove a milk 
wagon, and Mr. Fuller, a middle aged man, tall, with 
elongated features and thin, plastered down hair, who 
worked as a substitute in the neighborhood drug store. 
The three other boarders, Miss Grace Walker, a 
teacher, Walter Elwell, a clerk in the City Hall, and 
Tim Dyke, who worked in the feed mill, had all 


50 Gop oF MIGHT 


accepted invitations to spend the day with friends or 
relatives. 

The meal was elaborate. Mrs. Peck, the widow of 
a one time architect, never would concede that she 
kept a boarding-house. She insisted that she merely 
“took in people” who needed a home, and shared her 
place with them on a friendly, family basis. There 
was much truth in that. 

Nevertheless, the atmosphere during the dinner that 
day was one of subdued brooding. An indefinable 
restraint was in the air and everyone, including Mrs, 
Peck, was glad when the meal was done. 

Samuel went up to his room and after some reflec- 
tion, began to write a letter to Miriam. He had no 
more than put the girl’s name on the paper, however, 
when a shyness came over him, a shyness and. futility. 
What would he write to her? What could he say? 
He loved her. What if he did? He was only a 
boy ... It would be years before he could consider 
marrying... 


But he went on thinking of her . . . It was pleasant 
to recall her tight form, the hair which hung down to 
her waist in a thick braid, her firm, quick footsteps. 
He had learned to tell her walk a short time before 
he left home. Regret, bitter, poignant regret came 
over him. Why had he not talked to her before 
leaving? Why had he not seen more of her? What 
had he been afraid of? . . . He might have seen her 
often. They might have been together many, many 


LINCOLN 51 


hours . . . They might have taken walks in the eve- 
ning. In the evening ... It was summer... . 

The brief winter day was coming to a close. The 
sun was setting, and he had not been out of the house 
yet. He put on his overcoat and hastily went down 
into the street. 

Directly back of North Lincoln lay the double 
tracks of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad. 
He had spent several Sunday afternoons walking along 
these tracks, and he headed for them now. He was 
alone and undisturbed there except for.a passing train 
now and then—and he had grown to love trains. They 
seemed to him a link between himself and the people 
he had left behind; between him and his uncle in 
Chicago; between him and his parents in the Old 
World. 

He loved to stand aside and wait for the onrushing 
engine, watch the train, panting and crashing, dash 
past and recede into the distance until it became a 
tiny speck. The people in these flying trains, what 
glimpses he caught of them through the windows, 
stirred in him sensations of vast distances and vague 
immensities. The train always fell in with his mood, 
whether it was depressed or exuberant... 


VI. 


It was night when he reached home. There was a 
light in the parlor, and people. None of the boarders 
had yet returned, but two of Mrs. Peck’s daughters 


52 Gop oF MIGHT 


with their husbands and children were visiting her. 
The conversation was vigorous, animated, joyous. 

Samuel started for his room. Half way up the 
stairs he suddenly stood still and listened. Something 
momentous seemed to be transpiring ... Speech... 
He understood the speech of the people, of the children 
in the parlor below . . . They were speaking to their 
parents, and their parents were speaking to them in 
precisely the same manner and about the same things 
which he and his parents had been wont to speak 
about to one another many years back. For an instant 
it seemed to him as if these people had suddenly 
learned Ais language and were speaking in it. Then 
he realized: no, they had not learned his language. 
He had learned theirs! Their speech was English, 
and he understood it . . . He understood their speech. 
He understood English! 

He understood English... 


CHAPTER III. 
DREAMS AND FAIRIES. 
ri 


URING the six weeks that Samuel, on his arrival 

in America, had traveled with his uncle through 

the mountainous country in the vicinity of Lincoln, it 

often happened, when he closed his eyes and then 

opened them again, that the land about him assumed 
an unearthly, fairylike aspect. 

The wooded hills and soft green valleys, the winding 
streams and surging waterfalls, seemed utterly re- 
moved from things mean and passing . . . The herds 
of cattle grazing in rich pastures, the red-roofed barns 
and gabled houses, their paint still fresh and glossy, 
the women, lithe and stately in their trim house 
dresses, the golden-haired children skipping along on 
their way to and from school—all this at times seemed 
to him a thing of the imagination, a fairyland which 
would vanish as soon as he ceased dreaming . . . 

This fairyland aspect of America, lost during the 
initial months of feverish application at Emmerich’s, 
returned to Samuel with his finding of the English 
speech. 

It came strongest to him in the evenings. 

53 


54 Gov oF MIGHT 


As he listened to the aged men leaning against the 
counters, or crowding about the stove in the store, 
listened and caught the trend of their conversation, it 
seemed to him as if he were living in a fairyland where 
men never grew old, but always remained children: 
children in spite of their gray hair, in spite of their 
beards, children with a child-like joy in life and living. 
These men were not old. His recollections of old men 
were different. 

At home, in the Old World, when two or three aged 
Jews got together, they were always sighing. The 
question of making ends meet always troubled them. 
When there were no immediate material worries to 
sigh over there were spiritual worries: the fate of the 
Jewish people scattered to the ends of the earth; the 
destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem, which, in 
spite of all prophecies, had not yet been rebuilt; the 
failure of the Messiah to appear—the Messiah for 
whom they had been waiting for more than two 
thousand years. 

And finally there was death to worry over. For 
death to them did not mean rest from a weary exist- 
ence, but the very opposite. It meant getting into 
the harness anew, girding one’s loins for the greatest 
battle the immortal soul was to know, the battle for 
the hereafter, the fight for one’s portion in Heaven. 
It meant facing judgment, defending one’s course on 
earth before a stern tribunal in Heaven, with Satan 
always at one’s side to confuse one, to cast one into 
the abyss... 


DREAMS AND FAIRIES 55 


Nor were the peasant patriarchs, with their silver 
hair reaching down to their shoulders, more cheerful. 
There was a dumb, sorrowful look in their withered 
faces and patient eyes, as if they too were constantly 
asking themselves why they had lived and for what 
they were suffering. 

There was no trace of the bleak despair of the Jew 
or of the dumb tragedy of the peasant in the faces of 
the old men one saw at Emmerich’s. The subject of 
death was rarely mentioned among them, and was 
never dwelt upon long. There were no speculations 
about the hereafter. If a discussion of religion arose, 
it was limited entirely to things earthly. 

Sometimes Samuel would imagine his father coming 
into the store of an evening, or the peasant Trofim, 
who was the town bailiff, and was considered the 
wisest head resting on peasant shoulders in the whole 
district. How wide the eyes of either of them would 
have opened at the sight of these American old men, 
at the odd mixture of serenity and waggishness with 
which they treated life and one another. Plainly 
these men had known no suffering ... They had 
not known mockery and oppression ... They had 
not longed for justice in vain. They had suffered no 
terrors on earth, and they could not conjure up terror 
in Heaven. Providence had been kind to them during 
their life, and they could not conceive of this Provi- 
dence being otherwise to them after death. 

Yes, a fairyland, Samuel mused, as he listened 
to their jests and stories, a fairyland, and these men 


56 Gop oF Micur®t 


were fairy children . . . Gray-headed, bearded chil- 
drenaci is 

He had expected that when he was able to speak 
their language and take part in their conversation, 
they would ask him about his life in the Old World, 
about his parents, his religion, as they had questioned 
Emmerich concerning him in the first few weeks of 
his stay among them. He had primed himself for 
these questions, but they were not forthcoming. 

Indeed, his ability to communicate with the people 
in their own tongue seemed to be the final thing needed 
to cause them to forget his past altogether. This past 
having ceased to be an impediment in his relations with 
them, they had no further interest in it. They now 
treated him as one of themselves. 


if: 


During the last days of February a traveling com- 
pany came to Lincoln and gave a performance at the 
opera house. The event was heralded for weeks and 
all of the young people turned out to see the play. 
The Norwegian, Twesme, who was only two years 
older than Samuel, and with whom the latter had be- 
come friendly, bought tickets for two and Samuel went 
along. 

They ran into a crowd of boys and girls from North 
Lincoln in the lobby of the theater. “Hello, Sam!” 
the boys greeted him. The girls smiled and nodded. 
When the performance was over they all walked home 
together. 


DREAMS AND FAIRIES 57 


The crowd chatted about the play, comparing it with 
other plays they had seen, finding fault and praising it 
in turn. To Samuel the experience was altogether 
new. It was the first time he had been to a theater 
in his life. He had barely managed to get the skeleton 
of the play, and he was silent. 

Moreover, the most interesting part of the evening 
to him was this going home with the crowd. It was 
nearly a three mile walk from the opera house to 
North Lincoln, but he wished it were longer. He was 
listening to the conversation of the boys and girls, 
watching their behavior toward one another. Some 
day he would be talking like that, behaving like that. 

“Good night, Sam,” the boys called out as they left 
him and Twesme at a turning leading to their toarding- 
house. “Good night,” the girls nodded and smiled. 
“Good night,” it echoed on all sides. 

It was the first time in his life he had associated 
with Christians outside the store and the counter. He 
had played with them, for that was what the evening 
at the theater and the walk home amounted to—play. 
He had played with them and had felt no misgivings. 
He had in fact forgotten that they were Christians— 
clean forgotten—and was drawn toward them... 

He was in his room, undressing. 

Even now, as he was reflecting, reasoning about the 
entire occurrence, he could not bring himself to think 
of these people as Christians, the Christians he had 
known in his native land, the Christians he had 
feared . . . He could not bring himself to class them 


58 iy OD “OR VMN G ar 


with the peasants of Russia ... To be sure, they 
went to church on Sundays . . . But their church was 
different. He could not put these people into his cus- 
tomary religious categories. He couldzonly think of 
them as men and women... 

His father no doubt would never understand such 
an attitude toward Gentiles. But that was to be ex- 
pected. He, Samuel, too, would not have understood 
it a year before. Jew and Christian walking side by 
side unconscious of any difference between them—he 
would never have understood it in Russia... 
Never... 

There were other things in his, Samuel’s, experience 
in America his father would never understand, things 
he was not himself clear about . . . His own religious 
status, for instance . . . He was no longer sure of 
that. 

He was eating with the people about him, drinking 
with them. He was working on the Sabbath and rest- 
ing on Sunday. He had broken so many canons of 
his religion, had violated so many traditions of his 
race since his arrival in the New World. And yet he 
was not in awe of what he had done . . . He experi- 
enced no sense of guilt—merely a loss of certainty. He 
lacked certainty ... 

His gaze wandered about the room and rested upon 
an old straw suitcase in the corner. His discarded 
ghetto garb lay in that suitcase. He did not know 
why he had not destroyed these garments in the first 
place, but he had not destroyed them, and there they 


DREAMS AND FAIRIES 59 


were ... And next to them, wrapped in a small 
bundle, lay a new pair of phylacteries which his father 
had given him with his blessing and exhortation to 
remain ‘‘a steadfast Jew” . . . It was on the last day 
they had been together, his last day at home .. . 

Since his thirteenth birthday Samuel had put on 
phylacteries. They were an indispensable part of his 
morning prayer, six days in the week. His father had 
done so, and his forefathers before him for countless 
generations. But he had never once put them on since 
coming to America . .. Here the phylacteries, like 
his ghetto garb, had ceased to be a part of him... 
Both had become obsolete, meaningless .. . 

That, too, his father would never understand .. . 
What a gulf America was creating between them. 
. . . And they had been so near to one another, he and 
his father! Near, inseparable . . . Poor father! ... 
How his heart would break if he ever came to know 
of this. How his hopes would be dashed. A “steadfast 
Jew,” indeed , .. 


Il. 


It was long past midnight when he fell asleep. He 
dreamed that he and his father were on the way to 
Heaven, but had lost each other midway on the jour- 
ney. His father, staff in hand, was ascending from 
cloud to cloud, scanning the distances, and calling, 
“Samuel, Samuel!” He heard his father’s voice, his 
gasping, asthmatic cries. At intervals he caught a 
glimpse of his father’s figure, David’s strangely bent 


60 Gop oF MIGHT 


frame, hoary head and transparent, agonized face .. . 
Samuel would make a dash forward to meet him, to 
grasp his father’s arm . . . Meet, however, they never 
did . . . An invisible hand invariably threw him, Sam- 
uel, back, widening the distance between them 
anew... 

They were going this way in search of one another 
for ages . . . Their clothes had become tatters... 
He, Samuel, had grown gray in the search, while 
David had become snow white from head to foot like 
a cloud... They were trailing each other—but 
without result ... Without result ... Just as he 
came within sight of his parent, within the radius 
of his father’s voice, the invisible hand would cast him 
Hacks oy. 

He woke in a sweat... 

it was three o’clock in the morning, and he tried to 
fall asleep again, but could not. He kept seeing the 
bent figure of his father as he lifted his tired feet from 
cloud to cloud, searching for him and calling pitifully, 
“Samuel, Samuel!” 

“Father, father!’ He pulled the blanket over his 
head, and a soft trembling gradually filled the 
room ... 


CHAPTER IV. 
GOD. 
y 


URING the last week in March Jacob Gold came 

to Lincoln and stayed at a small hotel for the 

night. Samuel had been awaiting his coming and 

uncle and nephew had a long session together, taking 
stock of their affairs. 

Jacob Gold had sent out steamship tickets for his 
wife and children to come to America and was expect- 
ing them to arrive by midsummer. In the meantime 
he had started on a two months’ peddling trip through 
the country. His wagon was stuffed to the brim with 
shirts, underwear, wrappers. It was his “season” and 
he would try to save up a sufficient sum in these two 
months to enable him to set up a little home in Chicago 
by the time his family arrived. 

And Samuel, how had he been? 

Samuel elaborated to his uncle on the things he 
had merely hinted in his letters. He was showing 
progress at the store. Emmerich had raised his wages 
from six to eight dollars a week, and he was promised 
another advance in the summer. He liked the work 
and was getting along nicely with the people. They 

61 


62 Gop oF MIGHT 


were very friendly. But ... He was lonely ... It 
was not a physical loneliness . . . His mind had no 
peace, no ease... His spirit seemed to find no 
harbor... 

Jacob listened to his nephew in deep thought. The 
complaint was not new; he had heard it repeatedly in 
the four years he had been in the New World . . . He 
had himself experienced this feeling of loneliness, of 
detachment from the life about him, this in spite of 
his great love for America. ‘These feelings came to 
him most strongly before a holiday, a festive occa- 
sion . . . He had shaken off much of the ghetto dust 
from his heels, had discarded many of his old beliefs 
and superstitions, and he was daily discarding others. 

. But his soul, too, had found no peace, as if 
discarding alone were not sufficient . . . His spirit, 
too, had not yet anchored in the New World. It was 
still roving . 

But he was Hat middle age, he had come to America 
a grown man, while Samuel was only a boy. It was 
in order to aiviata this feeling of loneliness and detach- 
ment from the life and the people about him that he 
had counseled his brother-in-law, David, to send 
Samuel to America early. Was it possible that Samuel 
had already come too late to be spared the pangs which 
older immigrants were suffering? Jacob Gold studied 
his nephew. 

Despite the mental anguish he complained of, Sam- 
uel showed splendid physical development. In the 
five months they had been apart the boy’s body had 


Gop 63 


undergone a marked transformation. It had filled out 
considerably. His features had gained in firmness and 
manliness. Jacob noted this. Earlier, at the store, he 
had heard the boy speak to several customers. Samuel 
had literally spoken English and not the jargon which 
he and other immigrants like himself were employing 
to make themselves understood. Samuel’s youth was 
clearly asserting itself. He would find new moorings. 
It was not wise to dislodge him from his surroundings 
—at any rate not just yet. 

But he spoke the exact opposite of what he thought. 

“Tf you wish,” he said, “you can give Emmerich 
notice and I’ll come back for you in a week. You 
can go on the wagon with me for the time being, and 
later on, in Chicago, we shall see.” 

He waited. Samuel did not answer. ‘The prospect 
of being with his uncle once again was attractive. A 
burden was only half a burden when Uncle Jacob had 
been made aware of it. But: the store—the wagon. 
He was balancing the two in his mind. 

“Why not hold out for four or five months longer?” 
Gold suggested, as if offering a compromise. “Spring 
will come in a few days. Why not stay here through 
the summer, and toward fall you’ll come to Chicago. 
We shall have a home in Chicago by that time. You 
may be able to find a place in a store there.” 

There was the night to think things over, but Samuel 
did not think. Instead, he slept soundly. In the morn- 
ing he went over to have breakfast with his uncle at 
the hotel. 


64 Gop oF MIGHT 


The sun was out, and the weather promised to be as 
mild as a day in the late spring. The people he met 
had a brisk, cheerful look. Some of them greeted him 
pleasantly. He decided to stay... 


Ii. 


The other guests at the hotel had finished their 
breakfast, but Jacob Gold and Samuel still lingered 
at the table, each conscious that there was something 
unsaid between them. In a low voice Samuel finally 
inquired what date the Feast of the Passover fell on. 

Gold named the day. It was only a few weeks off. 

Both were silent. Across Gold’s face a tragic smile 
flitted. His nephew’s query implied more than the 
spoken words indicated. It was not merely the date 
of the holiday Samuel wished to know; other things 
were troubling him. The Passover was the most elab- 
orate holiday in the Jewish calendar, the most sacred, 
calling for special food, specially prepared .. . 

“I’m afraid,” Jacob tried to smile away the sadness 
from his eyes. ‘I’m afraid you and I will have to do 
without unleavened bread this Passover; we'll have to 
get along with ordinary bread.” 

“Tt isn’t anything to worry over,” he continued in 
the same strain. “After all, the eating of unleavened 
bread is only a symbol, and strong men, thinking men, 
can get along without symbols, if necessary ... You 
and I will not forget the exodus of the Jews from 
Egypt, their release from bondage, whether we eat 
unleavened bread or not .. .” 


Gop 65 


Stains of red came into Samuel’s face, and he was 
breathing hard. That was what he had been waiting 
for. That cleared things, lessened his uncertainty .. . 

Gold was speaking more earnestly now. He did not 
wish his nephew to discard his beliefs heedlessly .. . 
He wanted the boy to understand... 

“One of our ancient rabbis,” he resumed, “‘was once 
asked to state the essence of the Jewish religion in a 
sentence. He replied, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself.’ 
And that rabbi was not the first to express this thought. 
A thousand years or so before him the prophet had 
said the same thing in more ringing words. Do you 
recall the first chapter of Isaiah? 

“““To what purpose is the multitude of your sacri- 
fices unto me? saith the Lord: I am full of burnt 
offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts .\. . In- 
cense is an abomination unto me... Your new 
moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth... 
When you make many prayers I will not hear... 
Wash ye, make you clean . . . Cease to do evil, learn 
todowel... 

“That,” Jacob said, “is the essence of our faith, the 
essence of all religion. Jat is the kernel, the rest is 
Chali t 3 

It was a weekday, and it was late. A waitress had 
passed them twice. She came a third time and looked 
in their direction, visibly annoyed. They were delaying 
her. They rose. 


66 Gop oF MIGHT 


Tir, 


By nightfall Jacob’s visit, their plans, the things 
they had talked about that morning and the previous 
evening, became dim and shadowy. On the other hand, 
his first meeting with his uncle, on his arrival in 
America, seven months earlier, stood out in Samuel’s 
memory with graphic intensity. 

It was at the close of a warm afternoon early in 
September that he had arrived in Chicago. After four 
weeks of travel, delay and uncertainty, his journey to 
America was at an end; he had reached his destina- 
tion. Hugging to his side a bundle which, in addition 
to his phylacteries and the Hebrew Bible, contained 
several pounds of dried bread his mother had pre- 
pared especially for his sea journey, he stepped off 
the train and looked down the length of the platform 
for his uncle. 

His uncle was not there; he did not see him. There 
were not more than a score of people on the platform, 
and he would have recgonized his uncle among thou- 
sands. With his full beard, impressive frock, and lofty 
carriage, Jacob Gold was a figure to be seen at a 
glance. 

An immigration official in Baltimore had asked him 
for his uncle’s address and said he would telegraph. 
He had even collected fifty cents for the telegram. Had 
the telegram failed to reach his uncle? Had the immi- 
gration official forgotten to wire? What was he to do? 

Samuel cast about in search of someone he could 


Gop 67 


approach, someone who seemed as though he might 
understand him, when he perceived a face, a figure 
that was familiar, yet strange, coming towards him 
with outstretched hands. 

It was his uncle, but minus the beard, minus the 
black frock coat—his Uncle Jacob—but so different, 
so changed. He wore a short coat and a hat of the 
kind everyone about them was wearing. In anticipa- 
tion of his nephew’s arrival Jacob Gold had taken a 
fresh shave and his smooth, powdered chin, seemed the 
most prominent part of his bronzed face. He looked 
no different than any of the other Americans who 
stood nearby and who did not know Samuel, and did 
not understand his language. 

The day that followed was a day of days for him. 

From early in the morning his uncle had led him 
from store to store, from shop to shop. In one estab- 
lishment his outer garments had been replaced, in 
another his shoes, in a third his hat. Jacob led him 
into a barber shop, and there for the first time a razor 
had gone over his face. At the memory of that first 
shave Samuel still felt a tingling under his skin. 
Neither his father, David, nor his ancestors before him, 
had ever known arazor... 

His uncle pointed out Jews to him in the street, in 
the stores. Samuel could himself never have told them 
apart from Christians. America had obliterated all 
distinctions. The Jews had no beards; the Gentiles 
had none of the peasant stolidity in their faces. The 
one and the other dressed alike. The workmen wore 


68 Gop oF MIcuHut 


blue overalls and striped black shirts. What strange 
garb it was for Jews! 

“Lift your head,” his uncle reminded him from time 
to time as they walked through the streets, “throw 
your shoulders back. Look at the people. How 
straight they walk. They aren’t afraid to look anyone 
in the face . . . Nobody need be afraid . . . This is 
America .. .” 

Samuel walked straight. He expanded his chest 
until he felt as if his lungs would burst. He looked 
everyone squarely in the face, and no one reproached 
him. He was as good as anybody else. People took 
it for granted that he was... 

At the close of the day, when they had reached 
their stopping place on Chicago’s west side, Samuel 
exclaimed: 

“T feel as if I had just come out of a shell.” 

“Every Jew feels that way on coming to America,” 
Jacob had replied. “It is the ghetto walls you have 
broken through ... It is the Old World chains that 
are falling away .. .” 

Samuel went about his work lightheartedly. 


IV. 


A week before the Passover his lightheartedness left 
him. He tried to persuade himself that it was the 
weather; it had rained for several days steadily. But 
his mind would not be deceived. It was not the rain; 
it was the approaching holiday. 

When the eve of the Feast of the Passover finally 


Gop 69 


arrived, and at six o’clock he found himself on his 
way to Mrs. Peck’s for supper as usual, as on ordinary 
days, Samuel’s heart was beating violently ... At 
the table it was some time before he could swallow 
his first bite of bread . . . He was not afraid of God, 
nor of punishment. Of course not ... After all, the 
eating of unleavened bread on the Passover was only 
a symbol ... His uncle had said so. He knew it 
himself. Only a symbol... Still he ate without 
looking to the right or to the left of him. He finished 
his meal in half the time it took ordinarily, and quietly 
slipped away from the table and out of the house. 

They were to stay in the store late that evening. 
Easter was only a week off, and they were busy. In 
the afternoon a large shipment of goods had come in 
from Chicago. They were expecting to open it the 
next morning, but Emmerich had suddenly changed 
his mind. 

If Samuel went to the task energetically, the goods 
could be unpacked and put away on the shelves that 
evening yet. He fell to work with a will. 


CHAPTER V. 
SPRING CAME. 
it 


ITH the coming of spring, North Lincoln had 
donned a mantle of green and there were no 
more nightly gatherings at Emmerich’s. The men put 
in their spare time tending to their gardens and cutting 
and watering their lawns. The boys, who during the 
cold weather slouched around indifferent to dress and 
appearance, now seldom wore overalls after seven 
o’clock in the evening. Instead, they were dressed 
in their Sunday suits and shirts and either went “up- 
town,” where all life now centered on the Square, 
Lincoln’s business district, or else they stayed in the 
neighborhood and hung around certain street corners 
with an air of secretiveness, as if a great conspiracy 
were on foot... 

Around eight o’clock the girls came out, trim and 
fresh. They would stroll up and down the streets in 
pairs, nodding and smiling to whispered greetings, 
and in the growing darkness the boys and girls would 
vanish from view. 

Emmerich was now closing the store earlier. The 
first few evenings Samuel went home directly from 

70 


SPRING CAME 71 


work and devoted himself to the copy of a third 
reader he had borrowed from one of the Emmerich 
youngsters. After some days, however, his zeal for 
study waned. The fragrance of spring, of the freshly 
mown grass, and lilacs, penetrated to his garret. A 
new, unwonted restlessness filled him. He took to the 
railroad tracks and the fields. Nightly he tramped 
through the nearby country roads, musing, dreaming. 

One evening he made a discovery. He found the 
boys and girls, whose faces he had missed after dark. 
They were here, strolling arm in arm beside the road, 
or sitting under trees, their faces half hidden from 
view. | 

His restlessness crystallized into a definite longing. 
It was home he was thinking of, home—and Miriam. 
He was longing for Miriam... 

If Miriam were only there, near him . . . Every- 
thing would be different; he would be contented, 
happy ... On returning from his walks he would 
sit by the open window and think of her while North 
Lincoln slept peacefully and the street lamps alone 
were awake and twinkling... 


II. 


There were two or three blocks on the edge of 
North Lincoln which Samuel had not yet visited. They 
never made any deliveries there. He knew some of 
the people who lived on this street: two old bachelors, 
a widow, and one or two other men, who came, made 


72 Gop oF MIGHT 


their purchases, and quietly slunk out of the store 
again. 

The little street ran close to the railroad tracks and 
had no sidewalks. Samuel strolled along it one evening 
until he came to the last house. From that house a 
path led to the country road, the main road. It was 
not yet dark, and he was about to take the path. As 
he stood there deciding, he heard someone speak to 
him. It was a woman he had seen at Emmerich’s 
now and then, and had wondered every time he saw 
her. She reminded him of the wives and daughters of 
~ some of the poorer noblemen in Russia. There were 
traces of subdued elegance about her. She was unlike 
any of the other women in North Lincoln. 

Once she had come to the store in the company of 
an old man, and Samuel did not know whether the 
man was her father or her husband. Several times 
the man came in alone—drunk. The old man, he 
heard, had once been a veterinary surgeon. More 
recently he had followed the occupation of horse 
trainer. 

The woman was standing in her little garden, sup- 
porting herself on the hoe which she held in her two 
hands, smiling. He took a step forward and nodded. 
She came up to the dilapidated railing. 

He was gazing at the house with its strange, disor- 
derly yard. It was different from any of the houses 
in North Lincoln. There were all sorts of broken 
buggies and vehicles standing about. The walls of 
an open shed were hung with stray pieces of harness. 


SPRING CAME 73 


The barn, with its stable-like arrangements for a 
dozen horses, was in. complete disuse. The small 
house, too, was old and shabby, but was not without 
an air of coziness. There were bushes all about it, 
and the flowers were already abloom. 

“You must find it rather lonely here. I know I 
do,” the woman said, and smiled enigmatically. 

“Why—did you, too, come from the Old Country 
recently?” Samuel asked. 

“No, not from the Old Country,” she replied. “I 
came from Chicago. It was many years back, but I 
am still not reconciled to living here, and am hoping 
to get away, sometime.” 

They chatted a few more minutes, and then Samuel 
bade her good night and started. 

“Good night,” she said, in a voice that made him 
want to turn back and stay there and talk to her 
the rest of the evening. 

He did not come that way for three nights. On 
the fourth he passed the place again. She was there, 
sitting on a bench under a tree, looking at a paper. 

He greeted her this time. She answered his greet- 
ing with a pleased look, and, as he stood there hesitat- 
ing, she rose and extended her hand to him. 

She had a different dress on this time, a dress which 
made her look much younger, more girlish. 

“Tt has been a warm day,” she said, and made a 
gesture for him to sit on the bench from which she 
had just risen. She went into the house, but came 
back after some minutes and sat down beside him. 


74 Gop oF MicuT 


Since the night of the fire, when Miriam had come 
and sat beside him on the steps of their store, no 
woman had been so near him. Mrs. Iffland—that was 
the woman’s name—had put a dab of powder on her 
face and neck, and the perfume of the powder, mixing 
with the night air, made him limp. 

She was talking to.him, asking him about his home, 
and telling about herself. She had been born in 
a German village which was only half a mile from the 
Russian border. Her father had kept an inn there. 
She was eight years old when her parents had emi- 
grated to America, but she still remembered the place 
and the Russians, who crossed the border nightly and 
Stayed at their house. 

Most of them were petty merchants and smugglers. | 
They would smuggle things across the border. Some- 
times they smuggled people across. She smiled as she 
spoke of these things, expecting that they would be 
familiar to Samuel. They were. 

“Were you, too, smuggled across the border?” she 
asked him, “or did you travel regularly, with a pass- 
port?” 

He had had no passport, and he narrated to her 
how he and ten others had been smuggled across by 
an agent. He described the process of smuggling. 
They had to pass soldiers with bayonets, but the sol- 
diers stood with their backs to them, pretending that 
they saw nothing. The soldiers had been well paid, 
of course . 

She laughed. And then, as if to show him how well 


SPRING CAME 75 


she remembered these things, she pronounced two or 
three words in Russian which as a child she had heard 
the merchants say, and which had stuck in her memory 
all these years. 

He did not come to see her the next evening, and 
the following day Mrs. Iffland came to the store. She 
went up to Samuel, and smiled and chatted while he 
waited on her. 

Emmerich followed Mrs. Iffland with his eyes from 
the moment she came until she left, and the rest of 
that day he paid more attention to Samuel than usual. 
The next day, too, he kept a sort of informal vigilance 
over the boy. On the third morning Mrs. Iffland came 
once: more. Her order was a small one, but she 
seemed to take plenty of time in getting it. 

As soon as she stepped outside the door, Emmerich 
came over to Samuel. 

“Be careful of her,” he said, with a nod in the 
direction in which Mrs. Iffland had disappeared. 

He did not wait to see the puzzled look that came 
into Samuel’s eyes, but was off to another part of the 
store. A half hour later he again came up to the boy 
and resumed the conversation without mentioning Mrs. 
Iffland by name. 

“She is peddling with those smiles,” Emmerich said 
significantly. And then, as Samuel still did not grasp 
the drift of his remark, Emmerich smiled at him 
through his thick, tobacco-stained mustache, and 
added a word in German whose meaning Samuel could 
not miss. The boy flushed from ear to ear. 


76 Gop oF MIGHT 


Emmerich went away satisfied. 

It was several days before Mrs. Iffland visited the 
store again. Emmerich himself came up to wait on 
her. Samuel was in another part of the building and 
pretended not to see her. 

He never passed her house again. 


IIT. 


Emmerich had explained to Samuel the significance 
of Decoration Day, about which the people in the 
store were talking, and for which they were making 
preparations, and Samuel warmed up to the day. He 
was eager to see in the flesh the men who had fought 
against slavery, see them in their uniforms as they 
had looked on the battlefields. Hitherto “slavery” 
and “‘freedom from bondage” were terms he had asso- 
ciated with his own race and with the dim past in 
Egypt where the Jews were compelled to build 
“treasure cities” for Pharaoh. 

The parade of the war veterans was scheduled for 
nine-thirty. A little after eight, however, found Sam- 
uel on the Square. The place was rapidly filling with 
people. Long lines of buggies were coming from every 
direction and filing into the side streets. In a few 
minutes the occupants of these buggies, farmers with 
their wives and children, had taken up places on the 
sidewalk along the line of march. 

The sun was not yet high, but many of the men had 
already discarded their coats, and their bronzed hands 
and faces were in striking contrast to their snow white 


SPRING CAME a7 


shirts. That these men were sons of the soil was 
unmistakable, and yet there was a freedom about them, 
and a self-assurance such as Samuel had never known 
a tiller of the land in his native country to possess. 

“In the field they are workmen, at home they are 
gentlemen,” his Uncle Jacob had once described the 
American farmers in one of his letters. ‘How true!” 
Samuel mused. 

The parade started. In the very first lines he rec- 
ognized old man Warnock. A number of medals were 
pinned on his breast, and he carried himself with great 
dignity. A few lines behind Mr. Warnock Samuel saw 
the druggist Holstmeyer, a man with a venerable 
beard, but slightly lame, and leaning on his cane as 
he walked. Well to the rear he recognized Mr. Pitney. 
Pitney was a tall, gaunt old man in whose face there 
was a permanent expression of trying to recall some- 
thing . . . He was an old bachelor who lived alone 
in a diminutive hut on the outskirts of North Lincoln 
and earned his livelihood by working as a section hand 
for the railroad. He waiked in the parade deadly 
serious, as if it had been real war instead of play. 

There were several other men that Samuel picked 
out from among the marchers, men whose’ peaceful, 
domestic occupations he knew, and he was pleased. 
That was as things should be... That was how 
things were in the days of King David... Men 
worked at their trades, were farmers and shepherds, 
and then, when a crisis came, an enemy threatened, 
they put aside their plows and shepherds’ crooks, took 


78 Gop oF MIGHT 


up their swords and bows and fared forth to battle. 
Yes, that was the way things should be .. . 

On the Square a platform had been erected, and 
when the parade of veterans disbanded, several thou- 
sand people gathered in front of it and a man, whose 
name was prefaced by the title Senator, made an 
address. The Senator had been spoken of frequently 
at Emmerich’s, and Samuel observed the man with 
keen interest. The speaker looked like most of the 
people present, except that his face and hands were 
not so tanned. He wore a frock coat and silk hat, and 
of this Samuel was glad. That a man in civilian 
clothes should be a high government official likewise 
was as it should be . . . The early kings of the Jews 
had been chosen from among the plain people. They 
were men taken from behind the plow, youths called 
away from their flocks. 

He followed the pedestrians to the cemetery. 

Here he walked up and down the gravelled lanes, 
gazing at the people, reflecting. In his native town, 
in the Old World, the cemetery was overgrown with 
trees and bushes that were hundreds of years old. 
Awesome legends were told about it, and as a child 
he had always been afraid to look in the direction of 
the cemetery after dark. Here children played in the 
grass while their parents were placing wreaths on the 
monuments. 

An aged couple sitting on a cement bench near one 
of the graves attracted Samuel’s attention. The man 
had removed his hat and his white hair and beard 


SPRING CAME 79 


gave his features a saint-like transparency and soft- 
ness. He sat erect, and was evidently trying to 
preserve his calm dignity. His wife was younger, but 
had not borne her burden quite so well. Her frame 
was bent and shrunken, and there was a timid help- 
lessness about it. Her eyes, like those of her husband, 
seemed far off, transfigured. 

Samuel peered at the inscription on the monument. 
The grave was evidently that of their son. He had 
died at the age of forty, three years before. _ 

Samuel paused only a few feet from the aged pair, 
but they took no notice of him. They looked neither 
to the right nor to the left, but sat there with clasped 
hands, gazing speechlessly at the little green mound 
in front of them. The three, the aged couple and the 
small mound, looked as if they belonged together and 
were in exalted communion with one another... 

He walked on, gazing at the people, young and old, 
wondering what their thoughts were, their feelings. 
The Americans were such a puzzle to him. . . They 
were: so poised, restrained . . . At home, in Russia, 
had there been such a crowd in the cemetery there 
would have gone up a sobbing and a wailing to rend 
the skies . . . The women would have been beating 
their breasts . . . Here they were planting flowers, 
while the men were digging around the graves, water- 
ing them, tending to them, as if they were living things 
in need of attention. The living and the dead seemed 
as if joined in one calm, sublimated festival .. . 

His musings took a different turn. He was in a 


80 Gop oF MIGHT 


Christian cemetery—and he was unafraid . . . Yes, it 
was Christian, despite the absence of crosses . . . The 
people all about him were Christian . . . The graves 
were of Christian dead... 

He had been reared in the belief that Christians 
would not get to Heaven, that their dead would not 
come to life again. His father had believed it. They 
had all believed it in the ghetto... 

He passed the aged pair once more. 

They were still gazing at the grave before them. 
The old man’s frame was drooping. In the woman’s 
face there were traces of dried tears. They seemed 
like a pair of helpless orphans .. . 

He started for the gate gravely . . . What cruel 
things he had believed . . . What cruel things people 
were still believing .. . 


IV. 


One morning a letter came from his uncle. Jacob 
Gold’s family was on the way to America. They were 
out of Russia—he had received a card from his wife 
from the border—and should arrive in Chicago at the 
end of ten days. He was fixing up a home for them 
in the meantime. 

Samuel read the letter twice, then he read it a third 
time. There was a feeling of incompleteness about it; 
of something unsaid. He was pondering what it was 
his uncle had omitted to state. Finally he discov- 
ved 8 HPA 

During the time Samuel had been with Emmerich 


SPRING CAME 81 


he had saved up ninety dollars. At the first opportu- 
nity that afternoon he drove up to the post office, 
bought a money order for the amount, and sent it by 
special delivery to his uncle in Chicago... 


CHAPTER VI. 
SCORN. 
uf 


IS approaching journey to Chicago focused atten- 
- L tion upon Samuel once more and added greatly 
to his importance in the eyes of his North Lincoln 
neighbors. Only men prominent in the affairs of the 
city went to Chicago two or three times a year. Young 
fellows now and then talked vaguely of going there, but 
such talk was invariably met with a dubious shaking of 
the head on the part of older people. There were several 
among the men coming into Emmerich’s who counted 
a visit to Chicago among their experiences. While 
they were not at all averse to having this known and 
talked about, they themselves maintained a more or 
less studied reserve whenever the subject of Chicago 
was mentioned, as if to indicate that they knew more 
about the city than it was prudent to discuss. 
He was leaving on a Friday to spend the Jewish 
Sabbath with his relatives. 
Mrs. Peck made up some sandwiches for him. Em- 
merich himself picked out two of the best oranges and 
gave them to him for the journey. Tom Crane, the 


twenty year old son of George Crane, the milkman, 
82 


SCORN 83 


who lived in the same block with Mrs. Peck, found 
occasion that morning for hitching up his buggy and 
stopped in front of Emmerich’s in time to take Sam- 
uel to the train. Young Crane cut quite a figure at 
church socials and picnics. He lent the departure 
greater prominence than Samuel had wished. 

At ten o’clock the express from the West came in, 
snorting and panting. Tom entered the car with him, 
coming out at the forward end just in time to wave 
Samuel a good-by from the platform. Samuel waved 
back and smiled in embarrassment. 

Strange and disquieting thoughts were stirring with- 
in him. Would he see Lincoln again? They all 
presumed that he was coming back. He had talked 
as if he were going only for a week. But was he 
coming back? He was not at all certain of it. For 
some months now his uncle had had his family in 
Chicago. It was almost like having a home there. 

He had intended to take a good look at Lincoln 
from the train in the event he was seeing it for the 
last time. But before he had come out of his rev- 
eries, the city and its environs were miles to the rear. 
Broad, open fields stretched on either side, and in 
those fields men and machines were feverishly at work. 
It was the end of the harvest season, and women, in 
sunbonnets, stood beside the men, assisting, counsel- 
ling. 

Hields\.). rarvests Way a. Womeninnt': 

As always, when starting on a journey, his spirit 
was one of mild solemnity. Scriptural phrases were 


84 Gop oF MIGHT 


at the tip of his tongue, and dim pictures of things 
he had read and mused about were revolving in his 
brain . . . There was a time when Jews worked in 
the fields, when they had harvests, and Jewish women 
and maidens prepared harvest festivals . . . That was 
in the days before Israel had lost its country and was 
scattered to the four corners of the earth. He sighed 
deeply. ‘The four corners of the earth” .. . He had 
often mumbled these words in his prayers, but only — 
of late had he become aware of their tragic signifi- 
cance . . . He was in one “corner” of the earth, his 
parents in another . . . And there, in the village with 
his parents, she lived ... Miriam . . . Miriam—so 
far away, so far... 

His face contracted with pain, and into his eyes a 
strained look came, as if he were attempting in his 
mind to bridge over the distance between this corner 
of the earth and the corner where his parents were, 
where she was . . . He was speculating where Miriam 
might be at the moment, what she might be doing. 
It was nearly noon, no—it was not noon. When it was 
day in America it was night in the Old World... 

He took out his watch and began figuring. At home, 
in Russia, it was already evening, nine o’clock in the 
evening. Night ... Friday night. The old people 
were in their homes. But the young were in the streets. 
Dressed in their Sabbath clothes, they were strolling 
up and down the market place, strolling and dreaming 
of the distant lands where they thought happiness was 
to be found... 


SCORN 85 


Miriam was strolling along the market place with 
a girl friend. He knew her girl friend. Was Miriam 
thinking of him? Were the two talking about him? 
Could she by any chance feel that he was thinking of 
her now, longing for her? Was there a power that. 
could transmit his thoughts to her, across the sea? 

The noon hour had come and gone, and now the 
afternoon was wearing on quickly, as if it were trying 
to get somewhere in arush. It was two o’clock. The 
train was speeding past hamlets, towns, and. cities, 
treating them all with the same indifference, stopping 
at none of them. They still had a distance of eighty 
miles to cover, and only two hours to do it in. Samuel 
was taking stock of the country, the differences in 
the farms here and those up north, where he came 
from. Before he knew it another hour was gone; it 
was three o’clock. 

Big advertisements of Chicago stores came into 
view. The little towns they were passing had more 
factories and fewer trees. The people, too, were dif- 
ferent. They were no longer the farmer folk, but 
looked like city laborers . . . The passengers were 
growing restless. ‘The engine blew its whistle fre- 
quently and shrilly, as if it were tired of the long 
journey and was impatient to end it. 

The first outposts of Chicago came, gray wooden 
buildings surrounding a dark red brick factory. More 
factories and tenements followed, alternating with the 
river and large freight steamers. Bridges were open- 
ing and closing. The blue sky had disappeared. A 


86 Gop oF MIGHT 


brakeman shouted something about “parcels and um- 
brellas,”’ and the train pulled into the station. 


II, 


Samuel was once more in the midst of people and 
surroundings to which he had been accustomed since 
childhood. The parlor of his uncle’s home seemed like 
a bit of their native town transplanted to America. 
There were Sabbath candles on the table and a Sabbath 
atmosphere in the house. 

His aunt had already had time to acquaint Samuel 
with the course she had adopted toward the New 
World. Mrs. Gold was keeping a “strict house.” Her 
husband and the children could make all the conces- 
sions necessary to the American spirit ‘“‘outside.” In 
the home strict orthodoxy was to be maintained. What- 
ever her children might be compelled to be later in life, 
they were to carry with them the memory and the 
influence of a “Jewish home.” Jacob Gold had agreed 
to that. 

The meal was over and the children had retired. 
The candles were flickering their last, but the three, 
Samuel, his uncle, and his aunt still lingered at the 
table, discussing the New World, brooding over the 
Old. ‘The atmosphere in the room was filled with 
memories in which his parents seemed a sort of 
pivot . . . He inquired about his parents from various 
vantage points, and got a complete picture of their life 
since he had left for America. It was not a happy 
picture. He turned to their friends. 


SCORN 87 


Mrs. Gold told about them. 

He inquired about Miriam... Casually, and 
seemingly as an afterthought, he asked about “the 
girl who worked across the street”? from their store. 

In the weeks preceding his journey to Chicago, Sam- 
uel had conjured up a hope that his aunt would have 
some word for him from Miriam, something he could 
interpret as a message . . . Not that he had any rea- 
son to expect such a thing. He had not written to 
the girl, he had never made the slightest allusion to her 


in the letters to his parents . . . But then, Miriam, he 
felt, must be aware that he loved her, and women 
sometimes sent messages to their lovers . . . He had 


read it in stories .. . Girls were so much more in- 
genious than men in such matters. . 

His aunt knew Miriam. She knew every Jewish 
girl in their little town. But there was nothing to tell 
about her. The girl was still working in the dry goods 
establishment across the street from them. 

The conversation drifted to other people, but Samuel 
veered it around again to Miriam. 

As Samuel spoke the girl’s name for the second time, 
a sudden light came into his aunt’s eyes. Minna Gold, 
though a mother of six children, four of whom were 
living, was still young. The years of separation from 
her husband had set her thoughts and emotions back 
to her girlhood days. She had known love and long- 
ee, 

She regarded her nephew sympathetically. He 
looked much older than he had appeared to her at 


88 Gop oF MicHtT 


first. His face told of deep loneliness . . . Samuel 
was lonely ... 

Mrs. Gold now searched her mind for a memory of 
the girl, of Miriam, that might have some bearing on 
Samuel’s interest in her, but found none. Miriam, she 
recollected, was good looking, was considered so in the 
town, but there had never been any ‘“‘talk” about her 
as there was from time to time about other girls. She 
had had no “affairs” . . . If Miriam knew that Sam- 
uel was interested in her, if there had been anything 
between them, the girl had been discreet. She had 
concealed it carefully, perhaps too carefully ... 

No, his aunt could not tell him anything more. 

The mask of indifference dropped from Samuel’s 
face and a look of helplessness came into it. It was as 
if his trip to Chicago had missed its purpose .. . 

The conversation lagged, and soon they retired. 
Samuel lay awake a good part of the night. 


Ti, 


The shriek of sirens and the blowing of whistles 
woke him the next morning. It was early but his 
uncle was already up and out of the house. He would 
be back soon, however. He had merely gone to the 
stable to fetch his horse and wagon. 

Samuel dressed hastily and walked down to the 
street. 

A fog, half mist, half smoke, lay over the city. He 
strolled on until he reached one of the main thorough- 
fares of Chicago’s west side. Here there was a “tramp, 


SCORN 89 


tramp” as of soldiers marching. But it was not sol- 
diers; men and women were going to work. ‘There 
was an endless line of them along the sidewalks. 

In the three days Samuel had spent in Chicago, 
immediately on his arrival in America a year earlier, 
he had never been able to tell Jew and Christian apart. 
He could tell better now. As he stood gazing at the 
stream of humanity that was pouring past him, he 
readily picked out the Jewish men and women-.among 
them, in spite of their American clothes, in spite of 
the shaved faces of the men and the smart head dress 
of the girls. 

Some of the men and women gave Samuel a search- 
ing look as they passed him. Apparently they recog- 
nized a member of their race in him, but could not 
readily place him. The stamp of the sweatshop was 
not upon him. 

By the time he reached the house again, his uncle 
was back, and waiting for him. The fall season was 
at hand and Jacob Gold was getting ready to start 
for another two months’ peddling trip through the 
country. He was going to put in the greater part of 
the day at several wholesale houses where he had 
dealings. ‘There were bills to settle and orders to 
make. He wanted Samuel to go with him. He would 
introduce him to the owners of some of these business 
places, in the hope that his nephew might find a job 
with them, or through them. 

There were many other peddlers at the wholesale 
houses and they had to wait their turn. 


go Gop oF MIGHT 


The makeshift policy with regard to religion that 
prevailed at his uncle’s house, which was that of keep- 
ing things in strict orthodoxy in the home and ignoring 
what went on outside of it, prevailed also in these 
business places. It was Saturday. ‘The wholesalers 
were all orthodox Hebrews, yet they kept their estab- 
lishments open. ‘The compromise they made was to 
let their children, or clerks, work, while they merely 
looked on. The orthodox Hebrew law did not sanction 
such a compromise. 

Samuel made a note of this mentally, but said 
nothing. 

At the first wholesale house they entered the pro- 
prietor, a kindly looking man of fifty, with the beard 
and mien of a scholar, came up to them. He shook 
hands with Gold and shot an uncertain glance in the 
direction of Samuel. 

“My nephew,” Gold answered the interrogative look 
of the wholesaler. The latter extended his hand to 
Samuel, but continued to address himself to Gold: 

“Has he just arrived from the Old World?” he 
queried. 

Gold answered that Samuel had been in the country 
a year. 

“Does he want to buy goods, or do you want to 
buy goods for him?” the wholesaler pursued. 

Gold explained that his nephew had worked as a 
clerk in a store in the country for nearly a year and 
was now looking for a place in Chicago. 

“Hie doesn’t want to buy goods?” the scholarly look- 


SCORN or 


ing individual tried to make certain he had not 
misunderstood Gold. When told that such was the 
case the wholesaler lost all further interest in Samuel 
and proceeded to another group of peddlers. 

At the next establishment they visited, Gold was 
informed that the clerks in the place were either sons 
of the proprietors or other relatives. In the third 
wholesale house he asked to see the manager, Mr. 
Finkel, a clean-shaven, dapper individual of twenty- 
eight, who came out from behind a glass partition. 

Mr. Finkel was the son-in-law of the proprietor, and 
had a reputation among the peddlers for being a “good 
boy” and an “American.” He had come to the New 
World young enough to have made several grades in 
the public school and had been one of the first gradu- 
ates from a business college in the Russian Jewish 
colony. 

Gold had had some dealings with Finkel before, and 
thought he might enlist his advice, if not his actual 
help, in placing Samuel in some business position. 

Finkel listened politely until the import of Gold’s 
request became clear to him. Then his manner 
changed. 

“Peddling, let him go peddling,” he said, shifting 
his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other, 
and giving Samuel, who stood some distance away, a 
withering look. 

“He is one year in the country and he wants a job 
as a Clerk,” Finkel said, pointing Samuel out with a 
nod to his clerks. 


Q2 Gop oF MIGHT 


A chuckle went up from the people behind the 
counters. 

Gold tried to defend his nephew. The boy had 
already worked as a clerk in the country, he ex- 
plained. 

“Why don’t he go back there?” Finkel retorted, 
chewing smartly at his cigar. ‘“Nobody’s keeping him 
here.” 

The laughter this time was unrestrained. Mr. 
Finkel liked people to laugh heartily at his jokes. 

Samuel’s white face quivered with rage. He turned 
and walked out of the building. 

Gold joined him on the sidewalk a few minutes 


later. 
“Must you deal with that man?” Samuel asked, 


when they were again seated on the wagon. 

His uncle did not at once answer. Gold was not 
in the habit of sharing his troubles with anyone. Since 
the arrival of his family from the Old World there had 
been weeks when he found it difficult to meet expenses. 
It was one thing when his wife was in Russia. There 
every American dollar was two rubles. To house, 
feed and clothe a family of six in Chicago was another 
matter. He was now in debt most of the time to one 
or the other of the wholesalers with whom he dealt. 

“It is not that I must deal with him,” he finally 
said, “but there is no one better. Finkel extends me 
a little credit now and then, and when one of them 
does that, he thinks he owns you.” 

The rest of the way home Samuel scarcely noticed 


SCORN 93 


the streets and the people. A helpless brooding settled 
upon him. Why was his uncle under obligation to a 
man like Finkel? And why did Finkel humiliate him, 
Samuel? It was the first time anyone had scorned 
him on American soil, and it was one of his own 
people who did it, a Jew who, like himself, had come 
to the New World to escape scorn and persecu- 
fionsy)... 


IV. 


In the parlor of his uncle’s home two hours later 
Samuel was turning over the pages of a book and 
trying to forget the incidents of the morning, when 
there came a knock at the door. His aunt went to 
open it. 

“Look who’s here,” Mrs. Gold exclaimed. ‘‘Charlie!” 

“Ts he in?” came in a voice which Samuel recalled 
as if in a dream, and a moment later the young man 
who had been addressed as Charlie was at his side, 
shaking his hand vigorously. 

“Don’t you recognize me—have I changed so 
much?” the visitor asked, noting the expression of sur- 
prise in Samuel’s eyes. “I am ” here he gave the 
name by which he was known in the Old World. “We 
used to be school companions, don’t you remember?” 

This was not strictly true. Charlie and Samuel had 
been to the same school once for a single term. But 
they had never been companions. Samuel even had 
the recollection of a very bitter episode with Charlie, 
a fight in which he had come out second best. But 





94 Gop oF MIGHT 


that was far back, and there was something near and 
kindly in Charlie’s face and manner. 

“Yes, I remember,’ Samuel said warmly, and ex- 
tended his hand to him for the second time. 


CHAPTER VII. 
Rosa Karp—OTHERS. 
I 


HE hum of voices which filled the grove since 

early in the forenoon was dying, and one could 

hear the treetops swaying softly in the breeze. In the 

west the sun was rapidly descending. Sunday was 
coming to a close. 

The last group of picnickers, a dozen youths and 
girls of an unmistakably immigrant cast, had risen to 
their feet. The girls smoothed their waists and skirts. 
The boys straightened their neckties and examined the 
crease in their trousers. They had a two mile walk 
to the car line, and they started. 

They were going through the fields and past gardens. 
The air was redolent with the breath of night. The 
scent of ripe fruit came from somewhere. 

After a day of play and merriment the little com- 
pany was quiet and reflective now. They rambled 
on without speaking for some time, as if a sad memory 
had suddenly come over them. Then a girl began 
to hum in Russian a peasant song about autumn and 
love. Others joined her. They sang feelingly: 

95 


96 Gop oF MIcHT 


“The winds are blowing— 
Blowing; 
The trees are bending— 
Bending; 
The heart i is PorvaT 
ATK 


It was his new found friend Charlie—Charlie Tropp 
was his full name—who had taken Samuel to the pic- 
nic in the little grove on the outskirts of Chicago. 
Charlie was a capmaker by trade, and most of the 
young men and girls comprising the company were 
sweatshop workers. While not from the same town 
with Charlie and Samuel, they were all immigrants 
from Russia, spoke the same dialect, and had been 
raised in the same ghetto atmosphere. 

Early in the day Charlie had dropped a word in 
the ear of each of the little group about his friend; 
about Samuel’s family in the Old World and the work 
he had been doing since coming to America. 

In spite of the four years he had been in the New 
World Charlie had not lost the feeling of caste into 
which society was divided in his small home town in 
Russia. There Samuel’s father, the merchant David, 
had been very near the top of the social ladder, while 
his, Charlie’s father, a humble tailor, going about from 
village to village to sew sheepskin coats for peasants, 
was at the bottom. Charlie was thrilled by the fact 
that Samuel had accepted him as a companion. 

The same addiction to caste feeling prevailed among 
most of the other youths and girls. Equality was a 


Rosa Karp—OTHERS 07 


phrase. Their instincts were still guided by their Old 
World prejudices, which they had imbibed with their 
mother’s milk... 

The path was narrowing, and the company split 
into pairs. Samuel found himself walking beside a 
girl three or four years older than himself, Miss Karp 
was the girl’s name—Rosa Karp. They had spoken 
to each other a few times in the course of the after- 
noon. The girl had led in these conversations; she was 
curious about Samuel. He was equally curious about 
her. 

Both physically and mentally Miss Karp was head 
and shoulders above the other girls in the crowd, and 
her face, with its delicate white skin and frank, warm 
eyes, had become fixed in his mind. Miss Karp talked 
and smiled with discrimination. ‘There was a look 
of studied submissiveness about her, a _ restraint 
thoughtfully cultivated. 

“Don’t you sing?” she asked. 

No, Samuel did not sing. 

“You are like myself, then,” Miss Karp smiled, “I 
don’t a) either. There is so much to think 
about 

‘“‘Are you going back to the country?” she inter- 
rupted herself. 

“Tf I can find work,’’ Samuel replied, “I shall remain 
here.” 

“Mr. Tropp was saying that there are no Jews 
where you were last. Are there none at all?” 

“None.”’ F 





98 Gop oF MicHT 


“You stay with Christians?” 

“Yes.” He described to her the boarding house, 
Mrs. Peck, and the others. 

She inquired about the town, how it looked, if there 
were factories in it. 

Samuel described it. 

There were a number of factories in Lincoln. The 
Rogers-Baldwin plant was the largest. He drew a 
word picture of it. It extended over several blocks 
and turned out an immense number of plows and other 
farm implements. There were several other machine 
shops in town. These were connected with the rail- 
roads; the town had three railroads passing through it. 
Then there was a large brick-yard on the outskirts 
and a mill where they manufactured wooden boxes and 
tubs for butter and cheese, for Lincoln was in the 
heart of a dairy district. 

Only men worked in all of these industries. 

‘“‘Are there no factories in which women work?” 
Miss Karp asked. 

He did not know of any. 

“‘What do the girls do there, then?” 

“Nothing, they stay home mostly.” 

“They stay home,’ Miss Karp repeated in a 
low voice as if speaking to herself. But Samuel 
heard it. 

A remote look had come into her eyes and she was 
lost in reflections. They walked silently for some 
minutes. Finally she brought her gaze around to 
his once more. 


Rosa KarP—OTHERS 99 


“Were you home just now,” Samuel asked, “in your 
thoughts?” 

The girl colored. “Why, what a strange question.” 

“Yes, I was,” she added a moment later. ‘How 
did you know it?” 

“Your face told it.” 

“You are a strange boy,’ Miss Karp said, and 
changed the subject. 

“What do the girls in the country look like?” she 
asked. 

Samuel sketched the life of some of the North Lin- 
coln girls he knew, their activities in the winter, in 
the summer. None that he knew worked in a fac- 
tory; they were at home. 

“They must be beautiful,’ Miss Karp mused. 
“Think of the time they have to look after themselves 
with no shop work to tire them.” 

A moment later she added whimsically: “Are you 
going to marry one of them?” 

The startled expression that came into Samuel’s face 
amused her. ‘“‘Come now, are your” she continued 
teasingly. 

“You probably didn’t quite understand me,” he 
said with embarrassment, “they are Christian; the 
girls in the country are Christian.” 

“What difference does that make?’”’ Miss Karp kept 
up her bantering tone, “this is not like the Old Coun- 
try; it’s America .. .” 

A car was coming. If they hurried they would 
make it. Everyone was running. 


100 Gop oF MIGHT 


There was a scramble for seats. In the mélée Miss 
Karp had taken hold of Samuel’s arm so they would 
not be separated. 

When they were seated and the car started off, she 
sighed. 

“Tired?” he asked. 

“No,” the girl answered, ‘“‘just sorry the day is over. 
Sundays are so beautiful, and so short in America.” 

“Are you sorry you came here?” the question 
slipped from Samuel. 

“Sorry?” the girl repeated with a shrug. “How 
can anyone be sorry when there was no other choice. 
What could we do in Russia? They were taking every 
means of livelihood from the Jews, herding us like 
cattle. We would soon have been eating one another 
out there. Here, at least, there is a chance to do some- 
thing, become something .. .” 

“‘Become something?” Samuel repeated. 

“Yes, become something. You want to become a 
clerk, a business man. I—I want to go to school. I 
am going to night school.” 

“Vou are studying?” Samuel’s voice was uncertain. 
“You intend to take up something—a profession?” 

“Why not?” The girl’s eyes flashed. ‘I am work- 
ing in the factory with men like a man. Why can’t I 
be studying the same as men are studying. There is 
one man in our shop who expects to enter a medical 
college next February. He expects to be a doctor. 
Why can’t I, too, be a doctor some day—a woman 
doctor!” 


Rosa Karp—OTHERS IoL 


They changed cars and had to stand the rest of the 
way. | | 

They were passing a long street with old dilapidated 
buildings. From the side entrances of saloons men 
were shuffling out into the street, besotted human 
derelicts, their faces seared with care and degrada- 
tion, or stupefied by drink. 

Samuel was gazing at these people intently. He 
was seeing them for the first time, and the scene did 
not harmonize with his dreams of America. He had 
not been aware of the existence of such misery in 
the New World. 

Miss Karp followed his changing emotions keenly. 

“You are too sensitive,” she said soberly. ‘It will 
give you a lot of trouble some day. People like you 
and me, who are neither poets nor artists but must 
deal with the common clay of life, cannot afford to 
have such fine sensibilities . . .” 

Charlie Tropp was calling to them. They were all 
getting out at the next crossing. 

As they left the car, the company came together 
again for a few minutes. They were making appoint- 
ments for the following Sunday, and for evenings dur- 
ing the week. Miss Karp was going home with a 
girl friend. She extended her hand to Samuel. There 
was a sad smile in her eyes. 

“Tf you remain in Chicago,” she said, “don’t keep 
strange. And if you are leaving, good luck to you.” 

Her departure had been abrupt, and as Samuel 
watched her disappear in the crowd a sense of loss 


102 Gop oF MIGHT 


came over him. He was certain that he and Miss 
Karp would meet again, but they would meet late, 
perhaps too late... 

Too late—for what? What did he mean? 

His thoughts were vague. 


IT. 


His uncle was waiting for him. Jacob Gold was 
leaving town the next morning. He would make a 
short week of it, however, and would be back in time 
to see Samuel in case the latter were returning to 
Lincoln. He was advising him about looking for a 
position in Chicago, 

“Try the Gentile stores,” Gold said. ‘The Chris- 
tians in.this country are frequently nicer to the Jews 
than the Jews are to one another.” 

“How you talk,” his wife chided him. ‘One might 
think you weren’t a Jew yourself.” 

The treatment which he and Samuel had received 
at the hands of Finkel the previous day still angered 
Jacob. His wife, however, knew nothing of it, and 
Gold did not tell her. 

“fT am a Jew all right enough, a good Jew, never 
fear,” he said evasively. 


IIT. 


They were nicer. Samuel visited half a dozen of 
the principal stores the next day and was listened io 
politely everywhere. Nevertheless he got no job nor 


RosA Karp—OTHERS 103 


the promise of one. They had not the sort of opening, 
he was told, where a boy like himself could be placed. 

Several of the men he talked to suggested other 
places to try, places where he might, perhaps, meet 
with better luck. The manager of one establishment, 
the last one he visited that day, engaged him in an 
extended conversation. 

This man, whose name was Van Anda, was a Hol- 
lander. He was in the fifties, tall, broad and fatherly 
looking, and had come to America thirty-five years 
earlier. The sight of Samuel invoked in him reminis- 
cences of his own early days as an immigrant. He 
was interested in the boy’s experiences and impres- 
sions since leaving Russia. But Mr. Van Anda, too, 
had no job for him, nor was he more encouraging 
than the rest. 

In the evening Charlie called once more; they were 
to go out and see the city together. 

Charlie had on a different suit from the one he had 
worn Sunday, but one that was just as trim and ex- 
pensive. It was of the latest pattern. As on Sunday, 
he had on a pair of white cuffs with square gold but- 
tons. A large opal pin was in his tie, and he smelled 
of perfume. 

Samuel’s new found friend was almost girlish in 
his love of fine clothes. It was his several suits and 
many shirts, his patent leather shoes and two or three 
kinds of hats, that to Charlie symbolized America and 
its superiority over the Old World. And it was in 
Charlie, with his constantly changing attire, that many 


104 Gop oF MIGHT 


of the newer immigrants from Samuel’s home town 
or the places nearby saw the type of the smart and 
successful immigrant. He was a favorite with them. 

When Samuel had narrated his day’s experiences, 
Charlie exclaimed in admiration: 

“How you do get in everywhere! You certainly talk 
to Americans as if you were their equal, and you 
have been only one year in the country.” 

When his enthusiasm had moderated, he asked: 
“But you haven’t got a position yet, have your” 

Samuel owned he had no job. 

“‘And if you don’t find one, will you go back to the 
country?” 

Samuel supposed he would have to go back to Lin- 
coln. | 

“Why don’t you learn the capmaking trade?” 
Charlie suggested. “I could help you there. I am 
friendly with the foreman in our shop.” 

Two days previous Samuel would have shrunk from 
such a suggestion. But Miss Karp was working in a 
shop—and was planning to be a woman doctor some 
day. Others were working and studying. Why had 
it never occurred to him to do the same—work and 
study? 

While he was pondering over this Charlie was mak- 
ing a plea for Chicago. There was no place like Chi- 
cago for anyone who wanted to enjoy life. So many 
of their countrymen were there, and they all felt at 
home. Samuel, too, would feel at home, more at home 
than in the country. 


RosA Karp—OTHERS 105 


Did Samuel care to visit a family from their home 
town? He named the family. They were only a short 
distance from the house. Samuel had no objection, 
and Charlie led the way. In a few minutes they 
were climbing to the top floor of a tenement on one 
of the streets that was rapidly assuming the character 
of an Old World ghetto. 

The Kassows, as the family called themselves here 
(in Russia their name had been Kassowsky), were all 
home, and they welcomed Samuel effusively. Mr. 
Kassow had been a tinner in the Old World. Here 
he was a presser in a cloak shop. The work was 
hard, but he was earning ten dollars a week and was 
satisfied. Besides, his oldest daughter, Fannie, was 
working in an overall factory and was earning four 
dollars a week. Another girl was working as a learner 
in a waist shop, and would begin to earn money before 
long. 

Mrs. Kassow went downstairs, and soon returned 
with fruit and cake. The daughter had made tea. 
Kassow had monopolized Samuel and was plying him 
with questions, while the girl, Fannie, was paying a 
good deal of attention to Charlie. She and Charlie 
were the same age and it was evident that she con- 
sidered him very up-to-date. 

Samuel paid little attention to the pair until he 
overheard them bantering each other—in English. At 
this a shudder went through him. Had Charlie and 
the girl been trying to mimic each other they could 
not have mutilated the language worse. 


106 Gop or Micut 


He tried not to listen to them and fixed his attention 
on the flat. It was a three room affair with folded 
cots and beds tucked away in every conceivable nook, 
while in the bedroom, on a double bed, pillows and 
quilts were piled almost to the ceiling. In addition to 
their own family of six, a niece of Mrs. Kassow, who 
was engaged to be married, and was out for the 
moment, was staying with them. 

The odd pieces of second hand furniture, and their 
bewildered arrangement, the sour dampness of the 
kitchen sink, the weak flare of the gas jet in the 
middle of the room, with the dark grayness in the 
corners—all this cast a shadow of depression over 
Samuel. The flat, the people, their speech, everything 
seemed to him a pitiful parody upon America, its 
people, its homes, its language. 

A helplessness seized him. The abyss from which 
he had escaped was again yawning at his feet; the 
Old World seemed to be reaching out after him, trying 
to reclaim him. 

Out in the street once more he shook as one does 
on waking from a disagreeable dream. 


TY. 


Samuel stayed home the next evening. He had 
visited the outlying department stores during the day, 
and had walked until his feet blistered. The follow- 
ing night, however, Charlie insisted on taking him 
out and showing him Chicago—what he knew of it— 
after dark. 


Rosa Karp—OTHERS 107 


They struck out along one of the main thorough- 
fares. Here there was life and gayety. The saloons 
and vaudeville houses blazed with electric lights. 
There were no children in sight, and the pretentiously 
dressed women who promenaded up and down the 
sidewalks had a languid look about them, as if they 
walked in accordance with a doctor’s prescription, for 
their health. The men gave the appearance of being 
out for a holiday jaunt. 

Charlie was whispering mysterious comments and 
explanations to Samuel, which the latter hardly 
grasped. It was all so new, so unbelievably strange. 
It could not be possible that things actually were what 
Charlie said they were. After a little they entered 
one of the halls from which came a girl’s shrill voice, 
accompanied by the banging of a piano. 

Men were sitting about small tables, and painted 
girls in supposedly theatrical costumes were on the 
stage. Samuel did not make out what they sang, but 
one or two of the jokes they told caused his face to 
redden. The rolling and beckoning of their eyes, too, 
was not to be mistaken. 

Vaguely he realized that it was places such as these 
that people in North Lincoln had in mind when they 
spoke of Chicago in undertones, or with too obvious 
silences ... He was certain that when he got back 
to Emmerich’s the people would be looking into his 
eyes and wondering whether he had seen these things. 
Tom Crane and the other boys would be asking him 
questions ... 


108 Gop oF MIGHT 


Charlie’s thin face and sharp chin, with the dimple 
that cleft it in two, glowed with excitement. He was 
eyeing his friend constantly for a look of approval. 
He was anxious to have Samuel remain in Chicago. 
All through his childhood it had been Charlie’s ambi- 
tion to have Samuel for a companion, but it had never 
been realized in the Old World; there had been too 
many social barriers between them there. Here it 
might be realized. There were no such barriers in 
America and if Samuel stayed in Chicago they might 
be friends. He would tie Samuel to Chicago, to him- 
self, by revealing to him the city and its pleasures. 

They left the vaudeville place, and Charlie was 
taking him through “certain streets.” On either side 
of these streets were seemingly aristocratic houses. 
The blinds were drawn, but there were glaring lights 
over the entrances. Through the shaded windows 
music was bursting . .. Cabs were driving up; men 
were entering, leaving. As the doors swung open, the 
forms of women, with bare necks and bare arms could 
be seen. 

They came to a cross street. A street car was ap- | 
proaching, 

“Will that car take us home?” Samuel asked 
abruptly. . He looked pale and worn. 

‘“‘Why—yes, we can transfer,’ Charlie seemed non- 
plused by Samuel’s question. 

“Then let’s hurry and get it,” Samuel said, and with- 
out looking back at his companion, made a dash for 
the street car. 


CHAPTER VIII. 
PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE. 
If 


AMUEL was returning to Lincoln. 

The week Emmerich had given him had yielded 
nothing in the way of a position. The factory, which, 
for a day or two after his meeting with Miss Karp, 
he had associated with study and night school, had 
become identified exclusively in his mind, during the 
remainder of the week, with Charlie Tropp and the 
latter’s ideas and mode of living. And these things 
had suddenly become repellent to Samuel. 

His aunt was sorry he was going back to the coun- 
try. There were so few of their family in the New 
World and these few should not be scattered... 
But his uncle took a different view. He regarded 
Samuel’s return to Lincoln with a feeling not unmixed 
with satisfaction. 

When Mrs. Gold was not listening Jacob confided 
to the boy that he hoped to join him in the country, 
possibly even in Lincoln, at some not very distant 
date. He would wait until his wife had become more 
acclimated to the New World, and then he would 
propose to her that they leave the city. Gold did 


not relish being on the road for weeks at a time, and 
109 


L1IO Gop oF MIGHT 


he did not like Chicago. Having seen and tasted life 
in the smaller American communities, he did not like 
the big city. A place like Lincoln would suit him 
to perfection. He could own his home there after 
a while, a home with a garden patch in the rear and 
a ‘few flowers in front. However, this dream must 
wait. ; 

Samuel was holding counsel with his uncle about 
the problems confronting him in Lincoln as an only 
Jew. 

“Don’t isolate yourself,” Gold warned him. “You 
are not too old to grow into the life about you. People 
are people... Associate with them. Nobody 
bothers about the past here. Don’t you brood over 
it either .. .” 

“There are no yesterdays in America,” Gold con- 
tinued, ‘‘only todays and tomorrows. What you have 
been counts neither for nor against you; it is what 
you are, what you make of yourself. Be a man among 
men. You have burst the walls of the Russian ghetto, 
don’t crawl into a ghetto of your own making here .. . 
I wish J were your age... .” 

A dreamy look came into Gold’s eyes, as if he were 
visualizing what he would do with his life if he were 
only eighteen. 

“Wait...” He roused himself, and disappeared 
into the next room, returning a few moments later 
with a thin volume printed in their native tongue. 
He handed it to Samuel. 

“Take it with you,” Gold said, “it will clear your 
mind on many things. This little book is based on 


PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE IIr 


a famous work by an Englishman named Darwin, and 
lets in the light into many dark places... It 
smashes a thousand superstitions, Jewish superstitions, 
Christian superstitions, and paves the way for the 
human race to peace and understanding.” 

As the hour for Samuel’s departure drew near his 
aunt began to hover about him nervously . . . There 
was something on Mrs. Gold’s mind—a warning... 
Several times she attempted to convey it... She 
started to speak, but faltered and each time ended by 
making some trivial remark about the journey... 

An hour before train time Gold rose. 

“I think we’d better start,” he said. “You never 
can tell about these street cars. They drag so some- 
times, and you might miss your train.” 

However, they came to the station a good half hour 
ahead of time, and strolled up and down the platform. 
Gold talked cheerily about his nephew’s plans and 
future. Samuel acquiesced and now and then smiled. 

Just before the parting, however, a sudden dejec- 
tion descended upon them, and uncle and nephew 
both had difficulty in hiding their feelings from one 
another, as if all their talk and encouragement of a 
few minutes before had been meant for someone 
GIS ha. 

Samuel had a vague presentiment that his uncle’s 
plans to move to the country would come to nothing. 
His aunt would never agree to leave Chicago. Minna 
Gold was kind and tolerant in everything except her™ 
religious views. The very thing her husband inveighed 
against, the ghetto, would be holding her there .. . 


T12 Gop oF MIGHT 


He, Samuel, would have to face the future in the 
country alone, think and act for himself, and solve 
his problems unaided... 

As for Gold, a dull apprehensiveness was gnawing at 
his heart. He was responsible for his nephew’s future, 
for his happiness . .... Had he acted rightly by the 
boy in plunging him into such unaccustomed, gentile 
surroundings? ... Had he not set off his nephew’s 
little craft into uncertain waters? ... What would time 
and circumstance do with the thoughts, the sentiments 
about Jews, about Christians, that he, Gold, had ex- 
pounded to the boy that morning and on other occa- 
sions? ... Would life weave them into a garland 
about Samuel’s head—or into a scourge for his soul? 


The train had nosed its way through a maze of 
tracks and smoke, cut a path across several suburban 
towns, and entered the open farming country. The 
sky was blue once more, and the fields green. 

Slowly the clouds lifted from Samuel’s brain. He 
wondered what had made things seem so sinister just 
before his leaving Chicago ... His uncle was right 

People were people... They all had the 
same beginnings. They all came to the sameend... 
They were all children of one God... 

A longing to conform to the people about him, to be 
like them, to become one of them, came over him .. . 
He fell to studying his neighbors in the car, their 
ways, their speech, the tranquillity of their motions, 
with keen absorption... 


BOOK THREE: WHAT IS LIGHT? 





CHAPTER IX. 
JEW AND CHRISTIAN, 
I. 


EN years had passed. 

On a warm evening in May, roro, Samuel 
Waterman stepped out of the Northwestern railway 
station in Chicago and walked half a dozen short 
blocks to the Windsor, a quiet hotel on the edge of 
the loop. For more than three years he had stayed 
at this hotel whenever he visited the city. Not that 
his attachment for his uncle and the latter’s family 
had waned, or that Samuel had become sumptuous 
in his requirements—his visits to Chicago were now 
invariably connected with matters of business. He 
was a rising merchant in Lincoln, a large buyer of 
goods; salesmen came to see him; they called him on 
the telephone, making appointments, leaving messages. 
A hotel address was indispensable. 

There was running water in the room. Samuel 
washed himself, first in hot, then in cold water, en- 
joying the sensation of the big city’s elegance and com- 
fort. He stood a long time before the mirror, gazing 
at himself, searching his face and eyes, as if trying 
to make sure of something... . 

II5 


116 Gop oF MIGHT 


His mustache, while not so red as his father’s had 
been when David was young, still was unmistakably 
reddish. His hair, on the other hand, was dark brown, 
like his mother’s. His features, too, resembled those 
of his mother, especially his nose. It was straight and 
salient. He was of medium height, and his shoulders 
were broad and manly. 

In his eyes he was his father all over. Reflective, 
patient eyes he had, with a faint sadness lurking in 
their depth, a look of resignation and forbearance. 

His character? More difficult to say. Sometimes 
he was abstruse and dreamy, like his father, and 
then again he was sharp and clear, sedulous and self- 
assertive, as his mother had been .. . Had been... 
His face was tremulous, and his eyes curtained ... 
His mother had been dead five years .. . 

He stepped over to the window and took a deep 
breath. 

The memory of his mother invariably left him 
faint... Yes, life was full of grim surprises. It 
was his father who had been a source of constant 
anxiety to them.. The least indisposition on David’s — 
part, and they all trembled. His mother would stay 
awake nights to watch over him. Herself Sarah had 
never given a thought. She was so robust, so strong. 
Yet it was she who was carried off in her prime. 

It was nine o’clock, too late to call on his uncle, 
and too early for sleep. Samuel dressed and went 
down into the street. 

A tender spring fragrance was in the air. The 


JEw AND CHRISTIAN I1I7 


breeze from Lake Michigan stirred his senses like 
strains of music coming from far away. People 
thronged the loop, singly and in pairs. Couples were 
walking arm in arm. Samuel’s thoughts turned to 
Lincoln, and to Jessie... Jessie Grant... 

He left the loop, and was headed north, walking 
briskly, as if to meet some one. Yes, he was going 
to meet some one—Jessie. She was coming, taking 
_ gigantic strides and coming toward him ... She was 
beside him. Jessie was beside him, hanging on his 
arm, and he was telling her about the city, which 
she had never seen, pointing things out, explaining to 
her . . . ‘He watched the wonder in her face, in her 
eyes, at the crowds, the lights, the stores, theaters... 
She was happy, and her body, her lithe, eager frame 
clung to him with delight and confidence... He 
was thrilled with pride at his own knowledge, at his 
worldliness ... 

The dream burst . . . He was alone, miles to the 
north of his hotel, at the entrance to Lincoln Park. 
He turned back and walked slowly, meditating. 

A vast uneasiness was stirring within him. He 
wished it was twenty-four hours later and the talk with 
his uncle accomplished. Not that it would make any 
difference ... Jacob Gold’s disapproval could not 
alter his determination to marry Jessie. Still, it would 
be pleasant if he did not have to break with his uncle 
over his marriage . . . He hoped he wouldn’t. Cer- 
tainly his uncle should be able to understand, and be 
tolerant. 


118 Gop oF MIGHT 


He was back in the loop. It was close to midnight. 
The crowds had dwindied. There were more women 
now, walking alone. Girls walking unescorted .. . 
One of them was approaching him with a smile... . 
Her eyes were ingratiating, mellow... A feigned 
hunger for love, for tenderness was on her lips... . 
Samuel looked at her wearily and quickened his pace. 
In a few minutes he was in his room at the hotel. 


II. 


In the lives of the Gold family, too, the years had 
wrought many changes. 

Jacob Gold was settled in Chicago for good. He 
was the proprietor of a small tobacco and stationery 
store on the Northwest side, where both he and his 
wife took a hand in the business. 

In the first year or two following his wife’s arrival 
in America Gold would become eloquent from time to 
time about the country, about life in a small town, 
with a house and garden all their own. But his wife 
was adamant in her objections. Chicago was as far 
as she would venture in America. Even in the city 
Mrs. Gold was not finding it at all easy to maintain a 
“Jewish home,” she said, and would make no further 
compromises with her religious ways and customs by 
moving into the country. 

His dream of settling in a small town crushed under 
foot, Jacob Gold yielded to other pietistic demands 
of his wife with indifference. 

The number of their townspeople in Chicago had 


JEw AND CHRISTIAN 119 


grown considerably in these years, and the latter had 
decided to maintain a place of worship of their own. 
A dingy little fiat above an Italian grocery was rented 
and improvised into a synagogue. Mrs, Gold insisted 
on her husband’s joining the congregation. Jacob at 
first pointed out the existence of other, more attractive 
Jewish temples, but his wife would not hear of them, 
insisting they must cling to their townspeople, and 
Gold finally joined the little congregation above the 
Italian grocery. 

There were other sacrifices made on the altar of 
domestic peace. Not the least important of these was 
that Jacob Gold discontinued shaving. He now wore 
a short beard that was rapidly graying. 

This last external return to orthodoxy Mrs. Gold 
considered the greatest triumph of her campaign to 
bring her husband back into the fold. 

But Jacob’s outward yielding and seeming supine- 
ness to the over-zealous exactions of his wife were 
counterbalanced by an ever growing inner independ- 
ence and even rebelliousness. His views broadened 
with the years and his outlook was more tolerant 
than ever. 

His business left him a great deal of leisure, and 
he employed much of his time in reading. The humble 
Yiddish vernacular they had spoken in the Russian 
ghetto had in the New World risen to the dignity of 
a language in which a number of newspapers and 
journals were printed. Every question of religion, 
science, and economics was touched upon by these 


120 Gop oF MIGHT 


publications. Books, too, appeared on these subjects. 
Gold read everything voraciously. 

His oldest boy, nineteen, was preparing for college, 
and Gold followed his son’s work with keen interest. 
His absorption in his own family had not, however, 
weakened the bond between himself and Samuel. On 
the contrary, with the passing of the years, uncle and 
nephew were drawing closer together. From time to 
time Jacob sent Samuel one or another of the Yid- 
dish books he was reading, books on religion and 
society, and their views on these things had come to 
be more and more alike. 

Between uncle and nephew a spirit of comradeship 
had arisen. ‘They now looked upon one another as 
veterans in a long and bitter struggle, their struggle 
for a foothold in the New World, the struggle against 
their own past, with its age-old fears, exclusions, and 
limitations—the struggle for a broad, free life. 


III. 


Samuel’s visit was entirely unexpected, and when 
Jacob Gold caught a glimpse of his nephew’s face in 
the doorway, he knew at once that something weighty 
had happened. Mrs. Gold chided Samuel; she would 
punish him for not letting them know of his coming 
by giving him a poor dinner. 

The dinner Mrs. Gold provided was, on the con- 
trary, both appetizing and abundant. She had fetched 
most of it from a delicatessen. There was salt her- 
ring that tasted ‘‘just like in the Old Country,” smoked 


JEW AND CHRISTIAN 121 


beef, and dill pickles—things Samuel did not get in 
Lincoln, and relished. His aunt prepared the meal in 
the living room back of the store, and when everything 
was on the table, she took her husband’s place behind 
the counter and sent him to join Samuel. 

Uncle and nephew talked as they ate: there was 
vital news. Samuel had just disposed of his fruit 
store. He had received an exceptional offer, all spot 
cash too, so he sold it. He had wanted to quit the 
fruit business for some time; he was tired of it, tired 
of working evenings. 

As to what he was going to do next, that also was 
settled. He was going to open a general store, a sort 
of department store on a small scale. There was need 
for such a store in Lincoln. The city was growing 
by leaps and bounds. He had already picked the loca- 
tion. A new building was going up on the Square, 
the best business corner in Lincoln, and he had rented 
its entire first floor. It was a good deal of space, but 
he would have use for it. The lease was signed yester- 
day. He felt in his breast pocket to make sure that 
the paper was there. 

“Yes,” Gold nodded. 

His yes was not in response to anything his nephew 
had said, but to his own inner thoughts. Though 
Samuel had unburdened himself of his business plans, 
his face had not, as on previous occasions, relaxed; 
his look was grave. Clearly something other than his 
business affairs was weighing on his nephew’s mind, 
something Samuel would speak of presently. 


122 Gop oF MiIcHT 


Gold waited. 

Samuel lit a cigar; his uncle had given up smoking 
for some time. 

“Otherwise everything is well?” Gold was the first 

; \ 
to break the silence. 

“Ves,” Samuel said abstractedly. 

There was a picture on the wall, an enlarged por- 
trait of an old Hebrew with a long, white beard and 
a skull cap. Samuel knew the picture. Faintly he 
even recalled the living features of the man they rep- 
resented. It was his grandfather, his mother’s father, 
Uncle Jacob’s father. He had been a rabbi, and had 
died when Samuel was a child of four or five. He 
had a vivid memory of going to the cemetery once a 
year later, when he was already a big boy, and study- 
ing the massive tombstone with his grandfather’s name 
in gold Hebrew characters. 

His grandfather now seemed to be looking straight 
at him with sad, questioning eyes. A discomfited feel- 
ing came over him. He turned his head, fixed his 
gaze upon Jacob Gold, and said abruptly: 

“Uncle, I’ve been thinking of marrying.” 

He had meant his voice to be casual, firm, but he 
was conscious that it sounded boyish and frightened 

His beart was beating ... But it was over 
with, and he was relieved. He waited for an answer. 

Jacob gazed at his nephew with a smile that was 
not finished ... At last he had it, the cause of that 
enigmatic look in Samuel’s face. But did he have it 
all? 


JEW AND CHRISTIAN 123 


“Marrying—yes, that’s right,” his uncle’s words 
came very slowly. ‘You are old enough to marry .. , 
Plenty old enough ... And business .. .” 

“Tt isn’t that,’ Samuel interrupted him. He was 
impatient, wanted to have things over with quickly. 
“It’s about the girl. She is Christian .. .” 

Gold’s frame swayed the least bit forward. The 
expression in his face, however, remained unchanged; 
there was no surprise in it. It was as if he were lis- 
teing to something he had more or less expected. He 
was staring at the tablecloth, tracing the flowery de- 
sign on it with the dull end of a knife. 

“T dare say,” he began in a toneless voice, ‘‘I dare 
say it can be arranged. We shall have to keep things 
from your father, of course, but I think we can manage 
that.” 

Gold stopped, looked at the door leading from the 
living room into the store, whence his wife’s voice 
came, arguing with a customer. 

“We shall have to keep it from her, too, at least for 
the present,” he added. 

His uncle’s words, the attempt to give the thing a 
purely surface, matter-of-fact aspect, stirred Samuel 
to resentment. His uncle knew better. It was not 
the practical means of arranging his marriage without 
devastating his father’s peace of mind he had come 
for. It was on the higher issues he wished his uncle’s 
opinion, his approval. 

‘What I want to know,” Samuel said, and his voice 
had a raucous sound, “is what you think of such a mar- 


124 Gop or MicuHurt 


riage. Do you approve of it, or must I go my way 
alone henceforward?” 

Gold’s confusion mounted. 

A thought, too repellent for words, flashed across his 
mind. He forced himself to speak, and with averted 
eyes asked, 

“Do you dave to marry her?’” 

Samuel blushed to the roots of his hair. 

“Have to?” he exclaimed, indignantly. “Good God, 
no!” 

A grateful look came into Gold’s eyes. 

Samuel’s anger subsided. His words came with a 
rush. He was telling his uncle about the girl. She 
was pure and innocent. There had been nothing be- 
tween them,—except love ... He loved her... 

He paused for breath and then continued fervently. 

The girl and he were such perfect companions. She 
was not a Christian in the sense that they had known 
the word in Russia. Moreover, she knew that he was 
a Jew. He was not renouncing his religion or race. 
Such a thing was not necessary to the marriage be- 
tween Christian and Jew in America. With the 
Psalmist, they would leave the heavens to God and 
the earth to man... 

Gold watched his nephew’s face. It was aglow with 
tenderness. He asked about the girl’s parents. They 
were dead. She had a younger brother who worked 
in another town. The girl lived with an aunt in Lin- 
coln. She was employed in a real estate office. That 
‘was how they had met. 


JEW AND CHRISTIAN 125 


“How long have you known each other?” Gold 
asked. 

“Three years.” 

“And how long has there been—an understanding 
between you?” 

“We have been in love,” Samuel said in a low voice, 
“since last fall.” 

Gold was pacing up and down the floor. His wife 
entered. There was a Mr. Snell in the store to see 
him. 

“‘Ask him to wait,” Jacob said. 

When Minna had left the room Gold resumed his 
pacing. Finally he stopped in front of Samuel. 

“It is a big problem,” he said, “the biggest problem 
you and I have yet had to face in the New World... 
Intermarriage ... Jews were ostracised, stoned for 
things like that in the past ... I am glad you are 
approaching this issue from the noblest side, from the 
spirit rather than the flesh ... I am glad you speak 
so highly of the young woman ... There is nothing 
above a pure, good woman in this world.” | 

He stopped. He was not sure that what he had 
said was what he should say . . . He was not speaking 
theoretically now ... There was a concrete issue 
before him ... He had to meet the issue... 

“Tt is neither God nor religion,” Gold resumed, 
feeling his way cautiously among his thoughts, “that 
are the most vital things in this question. It is people 
. .. People are at the bottom of the entire problem. 
You will be happy—if people will let you. As for 


126 Gop oF MIGHT 


people, my attitude toward them fluctuates with 
events; it varies with moods . .. There are moments 
when I grow pessimistic ... It seems to me it is 
time the human race were wiser, kinder. It is time 
there were more tolerance in the world, tolerance by 
both Jews and Christians . . . And then again I think 
the human race has perhaps not yet had a fair chance. 
It has been swathed so long in bigotry, superstition, 
hatred, that it takes generations for it to get over these 
things . Perhaps the human race is first getting this 
chance now, here, in America . . .” 

Jacob passed his hand over his face and 
beard. 

‘“‘America,” he continued, “tat makes all the dif- 
ference in this problem between Jew and Christian, 
America... It is the difference between the past 
and the future . . . When I look out upon the street 
and see children on their way to school, Jewish chil- 
dren, Christian children, walking side by side, playing 
together, absorbing the same ideas, acquiring the same 
culture, I am filled with a new hope. My pessimism 
vanishes, and my faith in people, in their destiny in 
America, soars to dizzy heights. With the prophet of 
old I see only an undivided, a common humanity 
ahead. No difference of language or race. No ani- 
mosity over religion. No disputes on earth over things 
that are to come in heaven .. .” 

Minna entered once more. Mr. Snell was in a 
hurry. They followed Jacob into the store. 


JEW AND CHRISTIAN 127 


Jacob Gold had settled his affairs with Mr. Snell 
in a few minutes, but Samuel made no attempt to 
resume the conversation. His uncle had analyzed 
things for him clearly; in a way he had even indi- 
cated his feelings. It was not God his uncle was 
considering in the matter of marriage between Jew 
and Christian; it was people ... Samuel wanted to 
hear no more. 

The Gold children were coming home from school 
at three-thirty, and Samuel waited to greet his cousins. 
But he did not more than greet them. There was an 
express out of Chicago at five which would get into 
Lincoln a trifle before eleven that night. If he hurried 
he could make that train. 


CHAPTER X., 
JESSIE GRANT. 
ie 


XCEPT for an infrequent slip-up on his r’s and 
w’s, Samuel’s speech was as good and as ade- 
quate as that of most native Americans,—the years 
had been at work. He was thinking in the language 
of the people about him, and was thinking much the 
same thoughts. God was in his heaven, and all was 
right with the world,—such seemed to be the creed 
of the easy-going, self-satisfied, peaceful Lincoln with 
which he came in contact. And he subscribed to it 
heartily. 

He had become a part of the human fabric about 
him. His foreign origin, where it was known or re- 
membered, was of no moment. There were many for- 
eign born citizens, who figured prominently in the 
business and political affairs of Lincoln and of the. 
state. At meetings of the Modern Woodmen, to which 
he had belonged for years, and at the entertainments 
of the Elks, which he had more recently joined, Samuel 
was treated with that deference people are quick to 
accord to the alert and the successful. 


As for his religion, whatever it was or was not, that 
128 


Jessie GRANT 129 


interested people even less. A young man with no 
family ties was scarcely expected to have any church 
affiliations. 

As others saw him, so Samuel came to look upon 
himself. His memories of the Old World were growing 
shadowy. ‘There were times when it seemed to him 
that his life had begun only with the date of his ar- 
rival in America. The Russian pale where he was 
born, where his mother had died, and which his father 
would never leave, appeared to him in a mist, and 
his own part in it a myth, a phantom. 

He had gradually extirpated the timidity and fur- 
tiveness of the ghetto from his life, from his habits, 
his manners. He had gained in poise and self-control. 
Without losing any of his energy he had diminished 
his undue haste; without detracting from his alertness 
he had added balance to his former jerky, nervous 
motions. A feeling of security and well being, such 
as he had never experienced in the Old World, was 
upon him. At times this feeling stirred within him a 
strange gratitude. An uncontrollable desire would 
come over him to get up, bow to the four corners of 
the city, of America, and make a speech of apprecia- 
tion to the country and to the people for the high 
plane of humanity they had achieved. 

The Biblical education which he had received as 
a child from his father, from his teachers, he had 
retained. By a strange mental process he had, how- 
ever, stripped this education of its attendant ghetto 
memories, and clung to it. Often when by himself, 


130 Gop oF MIGHT 


when lonely or subdued, he would take down the 
small Hebrew volume of the Old Testament and turn 
to a page of the prophets, tensely, hungrily, as a musi- 
cian might in similar moments turn to his violin. 

He applied a similar process to his religion. 

Samuel did not question the existence of a God— 
that he conceived to be beyond his intellectual range. 
But he stripped his religion of the fanaticism and 
bigotry which attended it in the Old World. Often 
now he caught himself smiling at the things he had 
once believed, at the petty, basely human attributes 
he had once ascribed to the Deity... 

The religious tracts and pamphlets which his uncle 
was sending him from time to time comported well 
with Samuel’s own ideas in the matter—or it may 
have been from these tracts and pamphlets that he 


got his ideas... In most of these, the religious 
customs of the ghetto were assailed and their aboli- 
tion urged . . . One of the writers said the Jews of 


America were Jews by halves, each disregarding such 
religious dictums as did not meet with his needs or 
desires ... He called for a Jewish Luther... 
It was this process of winnowing his religion, to 
separate faith from superstition, that intensified 
Samuel’s respect for his Christian neighbors. From all 
that he could see about him it was evident that they, 
the Christians, had gone through that winnowing proc- 
ess long ago. The Christianity of the people in Lin-, 
coln was a totally different matter from the Chris- 
tianity in the peasant village by the Niemen. It was 


JESSIE GRANT 131 


singularly free from the fetishism and idolatry which 
marked the peasant belief... 

There were half a dozen churches in and about 
the Square, and Samuel had visited them on various 
occasions. Their simplicity always stirred his admira- 
tion. The churches he had known in Russia were 
stuffed with ikons and images of the most primitive 
descriptions. They were cloister-like and forbidding. 
Here the word “welcome” was on every church door. 
The walls of the churches were dignifiedly bare; they — 
were stately meeting places. The sermons, as many of 
them as he had heard, exhaled the breath of kindness 
and humanity, of gentleness and fair dealing. 

Dissent in matters of religion was met with a be- 
nign tolerance, without passion or bitterness. Thus 
there was a growing Unitarian congregation in Lin- 
coln, Samuel came to know, whose creed officially dis- 
claimed the divine origin of Jesus. Some of the most 
respected people in town belonged to the congrega- 
tion. In the conservative churches, too, not all mem- 
bers accepted the miracles in the Old and New Testa- 
ments literally. 

There was even greater forbearance. Several well 
known citizens in Lincoln shared in the theories of 
Robert Ingersoll, and had definitely severed their con- 
nection with the church. Still there was no preju- 
dice against these men; at least, none was shown. 

Yes, God was in His heaven and all was right with 
the world. 


132 Gop oF MIGHT 


II. 


The phantom to which time had reduced his life 
and experiences in the Russian ghetto was galvanized 
for Samuel with his first embrace—the instant he 
knew that he was in love with Jessie... His 
childhood memories came back with a rush, with an 
insistence that they be heard, that they be consid- 
ered . 

lf fone was to be his, was to become his wife, she 
must know him not only as he was, but as he had been 

She must know that he was a Jew. She must 
be made acquainted with what it meant to be a Jew 


in the pale... There must be understanding be- 
tween them. They must be able to share each other’s 
thoughts and feelings ... That was what he con- 


sidered marriage to be—a sharing of inmost thoughts 
and feelings . . . There must be no locked chambers 
in his mind... Marriage would be no marriage if 
there were... 


ITT. 


It was on the third Sunday since he had told her 
of his love that Samuel said to Jessie: 

“You know that I am a Jew, don’t you, Jessie?” 

“Mm,” the girl nodded without taking her eyes from 
the beautiful September sunset she was watching. 

They were sitting on the opposite bank of the lake 
which skirted Lincoln. Across four miles of water 
lay the city, wrapped in the golden haze which the 


/ 


JESSIE GRANT 133 


sinking sun had cast over it. Directly back of them 
was a small wood, Esther Grove it was called. A 
launch plied between Esther Grove and the city on 
pleasant Sundays, carrying such picnickers and visit- 
ors there and back as had no buggy and did not care 
to go on foot. The boat had just left, and they had 
nearly an hour’s wait before them. 

After some moments the girl came out of her rev- 
eries and sought Samuel’s hand. She was apparently 
thinking about his question, for bringing her face 
around to him, she said, with a smile: 

“Yes, I half felt that I should have a foreign sweet- 
heart. My best chum, Ruby White, married an Ice- 
lander, George Holm. We all loved George, and we 
teased him. We used to call him the only Icelander 
in captivity. He was the only one hereabouts.” 

Samuel had never heard of Iceland, and Jessie 
repeated to him what George Holm had from time to 
time told them about his northern homeland. 

“In many ways,” she said reminiscently, “you re- 
semble George. He, too, was moody.” 

“Am I moody?” Samuel asked, surprised. 

She laughed. Pushing his disordered hair back she 
was studying his sharp, high forehead. 

“My father would have liked you,” she said after 
a little. “He was fond of thoughtful people.” 

She had spoken of her family to Samuel once or 
twice before. 

Her father, Charles Grant, had been a school 
teacher. He had married when he was forty-five, and 


134 Gop oF MIGHT 


died at the age of sixty. Mrs. Grant, his junior by 
several years, followed him in death two years later. 
Jessie, sixteen, and her brother Horace, twelve, went 
to live with their mother’s unmarried sister, Alvina 
Day, who was doing dressmaking for some of the bet- 
ter families in town, and styled herself ‘‘modiste.” 

Jessie had planned to be a teacher, but after her 
mother’s death she dropped out of high school, took a 
six months’ course in business college, and went to 
work for Edward Mifflin, ‘Real Estate and Insur- 
ance.” Her brother took a job as an office boy in a 
local bank. He was promoted in due time, and had 
lately gone to work as bank teller in a small up-state 
town. | 

Jessie had shown Samuel a picture of her parents 
taken shortly after their marriage. Mr. Grant wore a 
beard that resembled that of Abraham Lincoln. In 
many other ways, he looked a good deal like the mar- 
tyred president. 

“J wonder,’ Samuel muttered to himself, but Jessie 
heard him. 

“T wonder—what?” she asked. 

“T wonder whether your father would really have 
liked me?” 

“He would—most certainly he would,” Jessie 
pressed his hand fervently. “My father too had a 
strange life. He did not, like yourself, come from 
the old country—he was born in Connecticut—but he 
had been a wanderer for many years. He had been 
to the far west, had taught school there. Whenever 


JESSIE GRANT 135 


he would speak of his early life, the dangers, the 
cold, and hunger he experienced, we children could sit 
up all night and listen. We loved him, all children 
loved him. There was not a pupil in the school that 
did not get on with my father. Some of the older 
people, though, did not. He was straight, and you 
couldn’t get his approval to anything that wasn’t 
right.” 

“lave you no other relations except your aunt?” 
he asked. 

“Oh, yes,” she said. “My father had brothers back 
east. Shortly after his death I heard from one or 
two of them, but we never kept up a correspondence. 
My mother also had married sisters in Dakota. They 
are dead now, but Aunt Alvina sometimes hears from 
their children, my cousins. Very seldom, though. 
Neither father nor mother were very much attached 
to their relatives. It seems to go that way in certain 
families. Don’t you think so?” 

“Yes,” Samuel said. 

He was thinking of his only sister, Deborah. She 
had figured so little in his life. When he was a child 
and she barely sixteen, his parents had married her 
off to a young man who was reputed to be a great 
student of the Talmud and who had later become a 
rabbi in a small ghetto community in a neighboring 
province. After that Samuel saw his sister only once 
in two or three years. Since his mother’s death his 
father had gone to live with Deborah and her hus- 
band, and judging from his letters, David seemed to 


136 Gop oF MIGHT 


have found in his son-in-law the happiness which, 
prior to the advent of America, he had hoped to find 
in him, Samuel. 

‘What are you thinking of?” Jessie broke the thread 
of his musings. ‘You look so grave.” 

“IT was thinking,” Samuel replied with a wave of 
his hand toward the city, “how nice it would have 
been had I been born here in America, like your- 
self.” 

“Ves,” she said enthusiastically, “we would have 
been friends since way, way back. We would have 
gone to the same school, and you would have carried 
my school bag for me. In the winter we would have 
gone skating together.” 

“Do you skate?” she suddenly turned on him. 

SIN. 

“T noticed,” she said, ‘that you are not much on 
sports, ball playing, and the like.” 

“No,” he said, “‘we miss all that in the ghetto.” 

“In the what?” she queried. 

“In the ghetto,’ he repeated, the color mounting to 
his face. “It is the place where we Jews live in 
Russia.” : 

“Oh,” she said. 

“T guess you must have had it pretty hard in the 
Old World,” she resumed after a silence. “George did. 
He used to make us laugh till the tears came, with his 
descriptions of the life in Iceland, the poverty there.” 

“Have you seen anything of Mr. Holm and his wife 
lately?” Samuel queried. 


JESSIE GRANT : 537, 


“Not in over a year. Ruby has not been to Lincoln 
in that time,” Jessie answered. 

“How were they getting on?” 

“Oh, very nicely,” Jessie said. ‘George is foreman 
for the gas company in his town. It is steady work. 
And they have a darling baby. It was thirteen months 
old when I saw it, and it was too cunning for any- 
thing.” 

Jessie came back to her unanswered question: — 

“Did you suffer much in the Old World? Did you 
have to go hungry sometimes, like George?” 

“No,” said Samuel, “I did not go hungry. We 
were spared that. There was always enough to eat in 
my father’s house. Always. But there were other 
troubles. Persecutions .. .” 

“Persecutions?” she repeated quickly, “Were your 
people persecuted? Were you persecuted?” 

“There were persecutions, yes.” 

“Why? Why were you persecuted?” 

““Because we were Jews.” 

He was staring blankly ahead. Jessie was silent. 
A pained look came into her face, and her eyes seemed 
to be straining, reaching out after dim, distant visions. 
She was trying to bring to her mind certain memories, 
certain things she had read about in her school books, 
in childhood. There had been stories of religious intol- 
erance and persecution in her history book. There 
were the Huguenots and the Quakers. They had come 
to America because of religious intolerance in their 
native lands. But that had all been so far back. She 


138 , Gon oF ‘Mirent 


did not know such persecutions still continued. Now 
she would have to add the Jews to the list of those who 
suffered for religion. Huguenots ... Quakers... 
PEWS els 

‘“‘And I never knew it,” Jessie finally brought out. 
“T thought all this wrangling over religion was a thing 
of the past.” Thinking of her earlier statement, she 
added: “I guess it is pretty wretched to be born in 
Europe.” 

Samuel wanted to tell her that the wretched part was 
not in being born in Europe, but in being born a Jew. 
But he refrained. The day had been so rich in love 
for them. They had been so happy. It would be a 
shame to mar it with a recital of his depressing Old 
World memories. He would not lift the veil just yet. 
There would be other, more opportune occasions to 
initiate her into these things of his past. 

He touched her arm and the eyes of both grew 
tender. 

Dusk had fallen. Across the lake, over the gray 
silhouetted outlines of the city, electric lights were 
beginning to twinkle. In the distance the launch was 
approaching. It was coming for the last time that day. 
They rose and went to meet it. 

At the landing several young couples, lovers, were 
waiting. They eyed each other shyly, feeling awkward 
over being the last to leave the grove. 


He found a convenient bench apart from the crowd, 
and they sat down. The boat started off. On the lake 


JESSIE GRANT 139 


the air was colder. The tang of autumn was in the 
atmosphere. 

Samuel took Jessie’s slender fingers in his. 

“How warm your hand is,”’ she whispered. 

He put his arm about her shoulders and drew her 
to him. 


CHAPTER XI. 
“FatHER, WHAT Is LicHT?” 
a 


HE Little Purblind Boy: “Father, what is 
light?” 

The Father: ‘Light, my son, is white—as white as 
snow.” 

The Little Purblind Boy: “White as snow... Is 
it cold, father, as cold as snow?” 

The Father: ‘No, my son, light is not cold. Light 
is white—as white as white feathers.” : 

The Little Purblind Boy: “White as feathers... 
Is it soft, father, as soft as feathers?” 

The Father: ‘No, my son, light is not soft. Light 
is white—as white as milk.” 

The Little Purblind Boy: ‘‘White as milk ... Is 
it wet, father, as wet as milk .. .” 


So ran the story of the little purblind boy in the 
Russian primer which he had read as a child—read 
and forgotten . . . Sitting alone with Jessie one Sun- 
day night in the parlor of Miss Dey’s home the story 
came back to Samuel with peculiar poignancy. 

He had been describing to her his life prior to his 


140 


% 


LOAN HR) Wi RA Thc S LLG ENT Pe  I4d 


coming to America, trying to convey to her the martyr- 
dom of his race in Russia, in the Old World—the trag- 
edy of the Jews for nearly two thousand years. 

Jessie had been listening to him eagerly, sympa- 
thetic but strangely puzzled ... Like the little boy 
who could not grasp “the thing called sunshine” be- 
cause he had been blind from birth, Jessie was unable 
to plumb the horror of his ghetto memories. Her mind 
could not encompass the injustices, the persecutions he 
was telling of. It was as if Samuel were speaking to 
her of another planet. 

What was race hatred, she asked, and why? Why 
this feud between Christian and Jew? What did it 
matter what people believed, how they worshiped? 
No one is hurt by what you believe; it is what you do 
or don’t do that matters. 

She shrank from the tales of pogroms, killings, 
blood. Such brutal passions, such ghastly vehemence 
between man and man were utterly foreign to her 
nature. They were at variance with her birth, her 
education, and surroundings. They were distressing. 
She wished to forget these things. Samuel must forget 
them. These things were of the Old World—and they 
were over with. He was in America. He must forget 
them. Nearly everybody who came from the Old 
World had a story of oppression to tell, not so bad as 
his, Samuel’s, but still oppression. 

That was why people came to America—to get 
away from the inequalities and injustices of the Old 
World. It was these horrible inequalities and injus- 


142 Gov oF MIGHT 


tices that gave so much point to American freedom and 
fairness. 

She spoke of George Holm once more. George, too, 
had had his share of troubles in the Old World, but he 
never recalled his experiences without a jest now. Then 
there was their neighbor, the wagon maker, Schultz, 
who came from Germany. The Schultz children had 
been her playmates when she was twelve, and she had 
been a visitor in the wagon maker’s home frequently. 

Mr. Schultz often told his children of the caste lines 
that existed in the fatherland when he was a boy. It 
was horrible. The common people there were looked 
upon as serfs. They had no voice in the government, 
in the running of the country. ‘The poor lived like 
beasts of burden. That was why so many Germans 
had come to America. Schultz, too, invariably smiled 
when he recalled these things. 

“Don’t bring these subjects up again,” she pleaded 
with Samuel. ‘They make me feel so wretched. I 
don’t ever want to think about them. You mustn’t 
think about them either.”’ 

Samuel promised. 

They did not revert to his Old World experiences 
again for more than two months. On New Year’s 
Eve, however, the subject of his home was once more 
brought up between them. Jessie herself had men- 
tioned it. One could not help talking of home on such 
a night. 

“Have you no photograph of your parents?” she 
demanded. “You never spoke of one.” 


“*FATHER, WHAT IS LIGHT?’’ 143 


He had no photograph of his mother, but had one 
of his father, a recent picture. David, in the Old World, 
had traveled two days by stage to the capital of the 
province, where there was a photographer, to have it 
taken. Samuel had insisted on it; he had to have a 
picture of his father regardless of the cost or diffi- 
culties. 

He brought the photograph to Jessie the next aye 
She regarded it in silence. 

In accordance with the religious customs of the or- 
thodox Hebrews Samuel’s father had had himself 
photographed in a skull cap. David’s side-locks, flow- 
ing into his long, untrimmed beard, lent his face a 
peculiar remoteness. It was as if he had suddenly 
stepped out of the past, out of antiquity. His deep-set 
eyes peered forth, stern and yet resigned, from under 
his large bushy brows. 

“Were you very much attached to each other?” she 
asked, turning from the picture to Samuel. 

“Yes,” he said. “Why?” 

“It sort of struck me that you were,” Jessie an- 
swered. ‘There is a look of reminiscence in your 
father’s eyes. He must have been thinking of you 
often.” 

Samuel was slient. 

“Strange,” she continued, after some moments, “but 
I have a feeling as if I had met your father before, as 
if I had come across his face somewhere, sometime.” 

“Maybe,” Samuel laughed, “it is because you know 
mex; 


144 Gop oF MIGHT 


“Maybe,” she agreed. ‘‘You resemble him, the eyes 
especially.” 

“They don’t speak a word of English over there, 
where he lives?” she said, half asserting, half ques- 
tioning. 

Samuel granted that such was the case. No English 
was spoken in Russia. 

“So that your father would not understand us— 
me?” 

SON Onee 

“What a tragic position to be in—for a father,” 
Jessie mused. 

Shortly afterwards Jessie stopped in at the public 
library and obtained a book on Russia. There were 
illustrations in it. One of these gave a view of a 
Russian village in winter: thatched cottages half buried 
in snow, the smoke curling from the chimneys; drab, 
one horse vehicles, peasants in bark sandals and sheep- 
skin coats. 

Was his town like that, she inquired, and Samuel 
described to her his birthplace by the Niemen. There 
were other pictures in the book, pictures of children. 
The youngsters had serious faces and were dressed 
like little men and women. They looked too old and 
sad for their years. 

‘Your winters must be very dreary,” she said. 

‘“They are,” Samuel answered. 

They were sitting on the sofa, the book between 
them. She closed it and moved over to him. She 
put her arm on his shoulder. 


OL AIT TEE Ry Wor AIP ES WL GET Pet 
3 


“Do you get homesick for your family—fre- 
quently?” she asked. 

“No—not frequently, not since I Meng you,” he 
said smiling. 

“Of course,” he added thoughtfully, as if fearing 
that his words might create a wrong impression, an 
impression of his wanting in affection for his family, 
“of course, I think of them often. But my mind is 
made up to the inevitable. We have been a closely 
knit family, but—-my mother is dead, and father has 
sort of given me up.. .” 

“Given you up?” 

Samuel hastened to explain: ‘‘We are writing to 
one another, and we are attached to each other. But 
we shall never see one another again. Both of us are 
reconciled to this . . . That’s what I mean when I 
say that father has given meup.. .” 

*“‘Can he never come here? Is his health so bad?” 

“Tt isn’t only his health that is in the way of my 
father’s coming here,” Samuel replied. ‘It is his mode 
of living, his religious convictions . . . He is orthodox, 
an orthodox Hebrew .. .” 

“And he is staying with your sister,’ Jessie said. 
“Why don’t you ever speak of her? What is she 
like?” 

Samuel described his sister to her. Deborah’s hus- 
band was a rabbi. He and his brother-in-law were 
worlds apart in their views and ideas. His sister had 
been a mere child when she was married and was now 
completely under the dominance of her husband. . His 


146 Gop oF MIGHT 


father’s views coincided with those of his son-in-law, 
the rabbi. 

“A rabbi,” Jessie interrogated, “that’s a minister?” 

Samuel nodded. 

“A rabbi,” she repeated as if trying to fix the word 
in her memory. 


TI. 


Jessie’s aunt, Alvina Dey, was a woman in the fifties, 
appeared ten years younger, and, as her customers 
put it among themselves, did not act at all old maidish. 
There was no trace of the spinster about her. She 
was pleasant and cheerful. Her body was compact 
and round, her skin was ruddy, and there was scarcely 
a wrinkle on her face. Her dress was always business- 
like. 

Since childhood there had been something of the 
aristocrat about Miss Dey. She was at all times suffi- 
cient unto herself. Her dislike for farm work mani- 
fested itself early. She hated getting up at four 
o’clock in the morning to milk cows, and rushed 
into dressmaking as a _ refuge from domestic 
drudgery. 

She was not the wife for a farmer, and had hoped 
to marry a city man. By the time she was twenty- 
five, however, the man had not yet showed up, and 
Miss Dey began to make up her mind to things. She 
ordered fashion plates. She would become proficient 
in her trade. In this she was successful, and work 





‘*FATHER, WHAT IS LIGHT?’’ 147 


began to come her way in such quantities as to make 
her days seem exceedingly short, and the Sundays to 
follow too soon upon each other. 

It was astonishing how swiftly the years went by 
after that. She was thirty-five before she knew it. 
And then her family began to drop off, one by one. 
Jessie’s mother was the last to go. And now she 
remained alone, except for Jessie and Jessie’s brother, 
Horace. But for some time now Horace had not lived 
with them. 

Jessie was no burden to her aunt. She was earning 
her own living, and there was every indication that 
the girl would be able to take care of herself. It was 
for this very reason, however, that Miss Dey was 
anxious to see her married. She saw something of 
her own nature, of her self-sufficiency, in her niece. 
Besides, it had been her sister’s wish that Jessie should 
marry. It was her daughter’s future that had worried 
Mrs. Grant most before she died. 

Of Samuel Miss Dey was exceedingly fond, and 
Jessie’s friendship for him had her approval from the 
first. He was the sort of man Miss Dey had herself 
dreamed of thirty years earlier: a man who would not 
stay put, but would forge ahead, would make his 
way... 

She knew Samuel’s story, his coming as an immi- 
grant, his rise to the place of manager in the Abbott 
Brothers store, the largest grocery in Lincoln, his going 
into business, and the creditable, really brilliant suc- 
cess he had made in a short time. 


148 Gop oF MIGHT 


It was from the real estate office where Jessie was 
employed that Samuel had secured his first business 
quarters, and it was an event much talked about. The 
particular store he had set his mind upon had been a 
hoodoo. It had both “front” and “location,” but it 
had no “body.” ‘The.store was situated in the Opera 
House block, under the arm of the theater, as it were, 
and the playhouse had encroached upon two thirds of 
its length. 

Mr. Mifflin had hesitated about renting the place 
to Samuel. It seemed rank inexperience to want it, 
and the real estate agent did not relish the idea of 
being a party to the young man’s loss of his hard 
earned savings. He suggested other locations. But 
Samuel insisted that the Opera House store was what 
he wanted—if he could get it at a reasonable rental 
and for a term of years. 

He got both, and opened a fancy fruit and cigar 
establishment. The store’s want of space then sud- 
denly became an asset and a means of display. There 
was not an item in the store that was not in full view 
of the customer. At once Waterman’s had become one 
of the most popular places to buy in town. | 

It was with the renting of the store that Jessie’s 
associations with Samuel began. She had drawn up 
the lease for him in the first instance. Later, it was 
with Jessie that Samuel usually deposited his monthly 
rent check. Occasionally, in passing, she would step 
into the store to inquire how things were going. She 
had believed in Samuel from the first, and had taken 





LATHER, WHAT ts Ligut:??’ > 149 


him and his projects seriously. It was in this way that 
their love began. 


III. 


Jessie and her aunt were having breakfast one Mon- 
day morning toward the end of February. Jessie was 
eating little, and there was a languid look about her. 
Samuel had remained late the previuos evening, and 
after he had gone she had slept poorly. 

Samuel was adhering to her injunction to forget the 
Old World. But it was she who was now from time 
to time asking questions. Their growing intimacy made 
her curious about a thousand things in his childhood, 
in his early boyhood, about his home and playmates. 
These could not always be dissociated from ques- 
tions of faith, and Samuel told her about his religion, 
the belief of the Jews, how much of it he accepted, and 
what he rejected. 

She had been dreaming of these things that morning, 
and especially of his father. She dreamed that Sam- 
uel’s father was in America. David had forgotten his 
own language and was speaking exactly as her father 
did . . . He had in fact become like her father to her. 
. . . she was always in his company. He was helping 
her about the house, and was kind, so kind... . 

She was thinking over her dream as she stirred her 
coffee. Miss Dey was speaking about her work that 
day. A busy morning was before her. Mrs, Thorn- 
dyke was coming in at eleven for a fitting. 


150 Gop oF MIGHT 


“Ts that the wife of the new Presbyterian minister?” 
Jessie asked. 

Ro pac 2? 

‘Why must there be so many different denomina- 
tions?” Jessie mused aloud. ‘‘Why can’t Christians 
just be Christians?” . Pe 

Her aunt did not answer. 

It was a rule with Miss Dey never to enter into 
discussions about religion with her customers, with 
anyone. She worked for the wives of all the ministers 
in town. They were all pleasant, friendly women. 


The husbands were even kindlier. All the ministers — 


agreed that religion was a matter of the heart—but, of 
course, people had to have their churches. 

Jessie went on speaking ramblingly about religion, 
until she came to the difference in religion existing 
between her and Samuel. Samuel had been born in 
the Hebrew faith; his people in the Old World were 
Hebrews. 

Miss Dey was carefully buttering a bit of toast. By 
contrast with her niece, she had a good appetite that 
morning, and was making a solid breakfast of it. Hold- 
ing the toast half way to her mouth, she said: 

“What does it matter what one’s religion is, so long 
as one serves the Lord. It is the sort of life one leads 
that counts, not the church one goes to.” 

Neither of them manifested any further interest in 
the matter. 


A ee ee _ 


CHAPTER XII. 
Gotp GIvEs His BLESSING. 
1b 


ARPENTERS were hammering, installing fix- 

tures and counters. Another set of workmen 
was weaving a network of wires overhead for cash and 
parcel conveyances to the balcony, which in turn was 
being fitted up with a cashier’s booth and a work 
place for the packing girls. Several advance ship- 
ments of goods had already arrived. The store, the 
first department store in Lincoln, was taking shape. 

In a small office in the rear, Samuel was receiving 
salesmen, and they were talking terms and credit. 
It was astonishing how eager these men seemed to be 
to supply him with goods. He was cutting many of 
the suggested orders in half, others to a third, and 
still others to only a fifth. From the first his idea had 
been to start his business in a small way, and he was 
not deviating from it. 

On her way to lunch Jessie would step in for a few 
minutes each day. Samuel had grown so accustomed 
to these brief visits that after the noon whistle he 
would watch the hands of the clock impatiently until 

15! 


152 Gop oF MIGHT 


he heard her light, swift steps, when he would rush to 
meet her. 

On a pad of paper before him would be marked 
down two or three items about which he talked with 
Jessie during the five or six minutes she spent with 
him. It gave him a thrill of pleasure to talk business 
with her. That was how things had been in his fam- 
ily . . . His mother invariably sat at his father’s elbow 
when David was balancing his books . . . His parents 
always talked business matters over together ... 

It was the end of July. Two weeks remained till 
the opening of the store. Samuel had retained Otto 
Guenther as his head salesman and manager. Guen- 
ther, a tall, athletic man, immaculately dressed, who 
carried himself like a statesman, took the detail of 
procuring and organizing a working force off his em- 
ployer’s mind. Nevertheless, the burden on Samuel’s 
shoulders did not seem to have lightened much. 

He wished Jessie might stop working. Many times 
through the day he caught himself wanting to ask 
her opinion, her advice. But he did not suggest it. 
It would be some time yet, five or six months, before 
they would marry, and it might arouse needless specu- 
lation, and attention. 

He was visiting Miss Dey’s home nightly now, and 
stuck away in his pockets, there were nearly always 
some letters and papers to be talked over with Jessie. 
On these business sessions Jessie’s aunt frequently 
permitted herself to intrude. Samuel made her wel- 
come. Occasionally he would draw her into the con- 


Gotp Gives His BLESSING. 153 


versation, ask her opinion. Miss Dey was immensely 
pleased over it, but never, by word or gesture, would 
she confess her feelings. She invariably delivered her- 
self of her opinion thoughtfully, and with much reserve 
and dignity. 

Larkin, the advertising manager of the Lincoln Sen- 
tinel, had been to see Samuel about an opening day 
announcement and, sitting with Jessie and her aunt 
one evening, Samuel was trying to think of an appro- 
priate name for the store. On a slip of paper before 
him he had the names of department stores in Chicago 
and several other cities, and he read them off: “The 
Fair,” ‘The Hub,” “The Emporium,” and so on. 

“Why don’t you just call it ‘Waterman’s,’ as you did 
your first store?” Jessie suggested. 

Miss Dey was an enthusiastic second. 

“T wouldn’t think of calling it anything else,” she 
affirmed. 

“Waterman’s, Waterman’s,” Jessie repeated, trying 
to visualize how the name onus look in the printed 
page of the Sentinel. 

Samuel was smiling. 

“All right,” he said, “Ill tell Mr. Larkin to make 
it ‘Waterman’s.’ ” 

He looked at the clock. 

“Tt’s nearly eleven,” he exclaimed, “how fast the 
evening has gone.” 

“Ves, and the summer, too, is almost gone,” Jessie 
said plaintively. 

It had been a strenuous summer for Jessie, no less 


154 Gop oF MIGHT 


than for Samuel—all work and no play. Often after 
he left her in the evening she would lie awake, think- 
ing over his work and his responsibilities. Her face 
and eyes had grown sedate, serious during these sum- 
Jmer months. 

Samuel was keenly aware of this. He, too, was 
sorry the summer had gone by so quickly and pro- 
saically. There was scarcely anything he could say, 
however, with her aunt present. 

Miss Dey had been keeping back a question which 
was on the tip of her tongue every time Samuel came. 
She sprung it suddenly: 

“How much will the whole thing come to—I mean 
how much will the store be worth when it is opened 
to the public?”’ 

Samuel made some swift mental calculations. 

“Between thirty-three and thirty-five thousand dol- 
lars—roughly,” he announced. 

“Of course,” he added, ‘I’ve pared everything down 
to the minimum. I’ve no doubt that before the first 
week is out there will be many large re-orders to 
make.” 

Thirty-three thousand dollars! Samuel had spoken 
of it just as coolly as on the farm they once mentioned 
the price of a sack of oats . . . Jessie would be the 
mistress of thirty-three thousand dollars—more in 
time)... 

Miss Dey had an impulse to jump up from her chair 
and to wave, to shout something across to someone— 
far off . . . But she did not jump. She remained in 


Gotp Gives His BLESSING _ 155 


her seat and was trying to appear calm, trying to gaze 
before her with the air of one who is thinking: ‘Yes, 
that’s about right, that’s what I thought.” 

Jessie had her eyes to the floor. Her aunt’s sur- 
prise had not escaped her. Samuel was always setting 
people gasping with astonishment at what he under- 
took, accomplished . . . Vaguely she even realized 
her aunt’s thoughts. She said nothing. 

Miss Dey rose to go. Samuel gathered his papers 
together. Jessie took him to the corner and then ran 
back into the house. As she reached her room, her 
aunt was there, waiting for her. 

On the wall directly over the head of the bed hung 
a photograph of Jessie’s mother. Miss Dey was gaz- 
ing at the likeness of her dead sister. Jessie was 
preparing to go to bed. 

“T guess your mother—would have been pleased,” 
Miss Dey said, with a glance from the picture to Jes- 
sie, and quietly left the room. 


II. 


Jessie’s brother Horace came home for over Labor 
Day. He arrived at midnight on Friday. At break- 
fast the next morning brother and sister were trying 
to read in each other’s faces the things that had or had 
not happened in the fifteen months each had been sep- 
arated from the other. 

To Horace his sister’s appearance was an agreeable 
surprise, for Jessie looked flourishing. She was beauti- 


156 Gop oF MIicHT 


ful. There was a firmness about her person that had 
never been there before, as if her entire mental and 
physical structure had been reinforced during his ab- 
sence. 

In her letters to him during these fifteen months 
Jessie had written nothing about her intimate life. He 
had known girls who begin to grow frail and timid at 
the age Jessie was, who quietly fell back to the rear 
and left the stage to others. But Jessie was decid- 
edly on the stage. In fact, she seemed to be in the 
very center. There was a look of benignity in her face 
and eyes, as if she were in possession of certain gen- 
erous gifts, which she was about to distribute... 
Horace was twenty-two, and only two years younger 
than Jessie, but his sister’s look made him feel as if he 
were only a child beside her .. . 

Jessie, in turn, was not pleased with her brother’s 
appearance. Horace looked thin and dry. He was 
not at ease. Ridlon, the up-state town in whose only 
bank he clerked, had about two thousand inhabitants. 
Everyone and everything was in public view. Horace 
Grant’s salary as assistant teller was not much above 
the earnings of an experienced plumber or delivery 
boy. But what the plumber and the delivery boy 
could do, a clerk in the bank could not. To take a 
glass of beer or to talk with the boys on the corner 
for a minute would at once jeopardize his standing in 
the community, and might cost him his job. “Tt is 
like being a minister,’ Horace had once written to his 
sister in jest. Jessie was thinking over these words 


GoLtp Gives His BLESSING. 157 


now. Horace looked thwarted, cramped physically and 
mentally, decidedly so. 

They went uptown together and sat talking in her 
office till Mr. Mifflin came. Horace then went around 
to the Bank of Lincoln to pay his respects to his former 
employers and to greet old friends. He stopped in at 
several other places, and at noon was back again in 
Jessie’s office. They were to go home for lunch to- 
gether. ; 

They went around the square, and at the second 
turn Horace caught sight of the new store that had 
gone up in his absence. He had read about it in the 
paper, and he had known Samuel Waterman casually. 
They had sometimes spoken of him at his aunt’s house. 
Jessie’s firm had had real estate dealings with him, he 
knew. 

He was taking in the store with his eyes before mak- 
ing any comment, when Jessie swerved to one side 
and entered it. 

The store was crowded, but Mr. Guenther, the man- 
ager, who was on the floor, caught sight of Jessie, 
came over, and greeted her. She smiled a greeting 
back at him, passed on to the rear of the store, Horace 
following after, and entered the office. 

There was no one there. Jessie breezed up to the 
desk, swept it with her gaze, and picking up some 
letters and papers, ran her eyes over them casually. 
While she was standing there the glass door flew 
open. 

“Hello,” Samuel called in the doorway. 


158 Gop oF MIGHT 


“You know Horace,” Jessie said, just as the men 
were catching sight of each other. 

“Why, hello, Mr.—Horace,” Samuel extended his 
hand warmly. “Glad to see you. Sit down. There 
is a little mixup in prices there . . .” 

He took two jumps to the desk, picked up a bill, 
swept his eyes over it until he reached a certain figure. 

“Be with you in a minute,” he smiled to both of 
them, and dashed back into the store. 

Horace, his face slightly flushed, his eyes bewil- 
dered, took a step forward toward his sister. But 
Jessie gave him no chance to frame the question. 

“Sam and I,” she said, with a half embarrassed 
smile, “are going to be married in January.” 


III. 


It was Samuel’s plan to let his father in the Old 
World know that he was going to marry. He would 
say in his letter that he was marrying a girl born in 
America, and it would never occur to his father to bring 
the girl’s religion into question. David would naturally 
assume that the girl was of their faith; there were 
Jews all over. A letter written by his uncle in the 
same vein would lend an atmosphere of approval to 
the marriage, and would clinch the matter. | 

In December he came to Chicago to talk this over 
with his uncle. Since the visit in the spring, when 
Samuel had come to tell Jacob Gold of his love for a 
Christian girl, the two had not seen each other. Sam- 


Gotp Gives His BLESSING 159 


uel had been busy all summer and fall, building and 
establishing his new business. Gold was, as usual, 
standing behind the counter in his store. When Samuel 
entered, his uncle rushed to meet him with outstretched 
arms, 

There was no one in the store besides them. The 
children were at school, and Aunt Minna had gone 
out shopping. It was Thursday, the day Mrs. Gold 
did her marketing for the Sabbath, and she was not 
likely to be back for some time. Jacob pulled up a 
chair near the stove for Samuel and another for him- 
self. 

After some questions and answers on both sides 
about family and business, Samuel started to explain 
the nature of his mission, and his uncle was in instant 
agreement with him. Yes, Samuel should inform his 
father of his marriage. By all means let David have 
the joy of knowing his only son married, settled in life. 
Gold agreed with him about the manner in which the 
letter should be phrased . . . Samuel was quite right; 
diplomacy was in place here ... He, Jacob, too, 
would write to Samuel’s father, to David... Of 
course, he would, and he would write in exactly the 
same vein... 

As always his uncle’s keen mind had anticipated 
things and made it unnecessary for Samuel to go into 
details, to speak at length . . . Samuel was relieved 
and grateful . . . It would but offend his uncle, how- 
ever, if he tried to express his appreciation, and Sam- 
uel began examining his uncle’s storé, the shelves, the 


160 Gop oF MIGHT 


stock on them. Perhaps he could make his apprecia- 
tion felt in a practical manner .. . 

When his eyes had completed the survey of the 
store and had come back to his uncle Samuel noticed 
for the first time Gold’s face, the manner of his 
breathing. ; 

“You are ill?” he asked, and his voice sounded as 
if it were not his own. 

His uncle tried to reassure him. 

“How quickly you grow alarmed,” he said. “It’s 
nothing dangerous. My heart is affected—a little. The 
doctor forbade tobacco, coffee; also I must not excite 
myself. With these precautions I am quite all right.” 

“How long has it been that way?” Samuel asked, 
his face ashen. 

“Tt has been coming on gradually.” 

“Why haven’t you told me before—the last time I 
was here?” Samuel persisted. 

“What is there to tell?” his uncle smiled weakly. 
“Tt isn’t anything you can help. I am fifty—past fifty 
in fact. Such things often come at this age, especially 
ii one has had it strenuous in life, and I have had it 
a bit hard on occasions. 

“Tt am taking good care of myself, now, though, and 
the doctor says I am quite all right.” Gold, touched 
by the pain in Samuel’s face, wished to hearten him. 

“Uncle,” Samuel’s voice sounded hollow, ““you—you 
haven’t been worrying about—my marriage?” 

“God forbid,” Jacob rose from his chair with a 
start. “How can you ask such a question? Why 


Gotp Gives Hts BLESSING 161 


should I worry over it? You are only trying to live 
your life in accordance with your lights. You haven’t 
done anything to worry over .. .” 

He was seated again, and Samuel came back to the 
subject of his uncle’s ailment . . . The country—per- 
haps if his uncle moved to the country, it would im- 
prove his health ... 

He, Samuel, had never been in a more advan- 
tageous position to help his uncle, the family... 
He would set them up in business anywhere... 
He would look after them till they were started, 
going... 

Gold’s face, his gray beard and eyes, had suddenly 
become the playground of conflicting thoughts and 
emotions. To live in the country had been his life- 
long dream. 

“Too late,”’ he shook his head sadly. 

Samuel was thinking, revolving plans in his mind. 

“Too late,” his uncle repeated slowly. ‘The chil- 
dren have their schools here, their friends . . . Minna 
has her ghetto and all its paraphernalia. And even 
for me Chicago is the better place now. We have good 
doctors here, specialists . . .” 

Gold rose and paced the floor twice, three times. 
Outside a wet snow was falling. He looked at his 
watch and walked over to where Samuel stood dazed, 
immovable. 

“When are you going to be married?” he asked. 

“In a month,” Samuel answered. 

“In a month,” his uncle repeated. ‘Very well. I 


162 Gop oF MIGHT 


will write to your father in the next few days. Ill 
write .. . In the meantime—”’ 

Jacob stepped up closer and put his hands on Sam- | 
uel’s shoulders. 

“In the meantime,” he repeated, as he gazed into 
his nephew’s eyes, “here are my congratulations—and 
my blessing.” 

Gold stepped back quietly and returned to his ac- 
customed place behind the counter, Samuel had barely 
had time to compose himself when his aunt entered. 


BOOK FOUR: FAITH OF THE 
FATHERS. 





CHAPTER XIII. 
SILENCE. 
‘P 


HILE Samuel was at pains to obliterate com- 

pletely whatever differences of temper and con- 
duct still existed between himself and the people about 
him, Jessie’s people, to acquire the reserve and out- 
ward calm of the American man, to set boundaries to 
his emotions, and keep his eagerness in restraint, Jes- 
sie, in her turn, yielded herself up completely to her 
husband’s impetuosity. She succumbed to Samuel’s 
ebullient restlessness. Her thoughts were perpetually 
trained in his direction, her emotions racing to meet 
his ... It-was as if the flame of their love was dis- 
solving, transfusing and forming their characters 
anew... 

The change that had come over her both puzzled 
and delighted Jessie. 

“T feel,” she confided to Samuel, “as if I were not 
myself, but someone else . . . It does not seem pos- 
sible that it is my old self that is experiencing all this 
delight. I never knew there was so much happiness 
in the world .. .” 

165 


& 


166 Gop oF MIGHT 


Moods of depression began to alternate with her 
moods of ecstasy. A sudden fear would seize her, 
fear lest her happiness prove to be but a dream, 
vanish... 

“Sam,”’ she said to him on returning from a long 
drive one Sunday evening in July, ‘Sam, if—if any- 
thing ever came between us—if anything happened to 
wreck our happiness—I—I don’t know what I would 
ete eee 

The doctor had explained to Samuel that these 
moods were not entirely unexpected in the condition 
his wife was in... Jessie was to become a mother 
in December. 

“Nothing is going to happen,” Samuel was speaking 
to her as one does to a child whose unfounded fears 
one is trying to allay. 

“Nothing can wreck our love,” he continued, taking 
her in his arms and kissing her mouth, her eyes, her 
hair. 

“T’ve been so worried in the last few days, so wor- 
ried,” Jessie was mumbling. 

She was tired. The warm day and the long ride 
in the evening had sapped her strength. He must 
get her to bed at once. He helped her undress, taking 
off her shoes ... Her mood changed. She played 
and teased him like a child ... An hour later, just 
as Samuel was falling asleep by her side, Jessie asked: 

“You haven’t heard from your family, have your” 

She had to repeat the question before his slumber- 
ing brain grasped what she was saying, and then he 


SILENCE 167 


drawled out: ‘“No-o-o.” He was dozing off again, 
but the sweetness was gone from his slumber . . . He 
was dimly conscious of a prodding at a sore, sensitive 
spot within him... 


II. 


Jessie’s moods of fear and depression had not sub- 
sided and the physician was called in. He suggested 
a month in the country. In her condition the country 
would do Mrs. Waterman no end of good. It was 
decided that she should spend a month at Angels’ 
Camp. 

Angels’ Camp was a quaint summer place in a small, 
retired valley, less than two hours by train from Lin- 
coln. It was far enough from the big cities for visitors 
not to swoop down upon it indiscriminately, and it 
was seldom crowded. ‘Transportation to and from 
Lincoln was fairly good. Samuel would be able to 
spend his Sundays with Jessie and, now and then, he 
might even manage to snatch an afternoon off during 
the week and come out to see her. 

. Accommodations for Mrs. Waterman were obtained 

at the Blossom Inn, the more exclusive and family- 
like of the summer hotels at Angels’ Camp. They 
arrived on a Sunday morning. Samuel had stayed 
until noon of the following day with her. They ate a 
hasty dinner together and a little after one o’clock he 
took the train back to Lincoln. 


168 Gop oF MIGHT 


III. 


He was at his desk at three. His mail was waiting 
for him. Hastily he passed the envelopes through his 
fingers before opening a single one of them: Bills, 
invoices, advices from the railroad company, fraternal 
notices, a communication from the bank . . . Nothing 
from his uncle in Chicago... It was five months 
since Jacob Gold had last written ... Yes, the ban 
was on—the ban which Aunt Minna had put upon him 
since she learned of his, Samuel’s, marriage . . . His 
uncle apparently was powerless to lift this ban, power- 
less before his wife . . . Poor Uncle Jacob . 

And there was me from the Old World! 

His father was not writing . . . David had not ee 
ten in months . . . Was his ee ill? . . . Was that 
the meaning of this silence? Or— 

Could Aunt Minna possibly have done it? Could 
she possibly have written to his father that he, Sam- 
uel, had married a Christian girl? Aunt Minna, his 
uncle had written at the time, was desperate... 
Could she have stooped to that? . .. If she had, if 
she had written to his father, then he, Samuel, would 
never again hear from him .. . Yes, his father might 
even be dead—Mrs. Gold’s letter might have killed 
ine 

He passed his hands over his eyes as if to remove 
the clouds which seemed to him to be gathering in front 
of them . . . He would wait . . . There was nothing 
he could do in the matter except be patient... Be 


SILENCE 169 


patient—and put it out of his mind as much as pos- 
sible ... He had not only himself to think of now. 
. . . There was Jessie—and there would be a child. 
He had responsibilities towards them . . . Their lives 
were now in his care, their happiness ... Yes, he 
must put these things out of his mind... 

He disposed of the mail to Miss Trainor, his stenog- 
rapher, to his manager, Mr. Guenther . . . Several 
bills he went over personally and with great care... 

Four o’clock. 

The air was humid, sultry. Samuel leaned back in 
his chair weary, enervated. They had been up till late 
the night before and he was out of his room at five that 
morning, and had strolled along the lake and through 
the woods, at first alone, and then with Jessie... 
The woods and especially the lake had stirred him. . . 
The lake had spoken to him in the language of his 
childhood, the language of the Niemen, king of the 
White Russian rivers, on the bank above whose mur- 
muring waters stood their home... 

Ther home... 

A thin smile flickered about the corners of his mouth. 
How old habits will cling . . . The house by the Nie- 
men was long since the property of someone else, but 
he had never ceased thinking of it as ther home... 
It was the same with the store ... Strangers now 
owned it; his father had sold it shortly after the death 
of Samuel’s mother . . . But he could only think of 
the store as their store ... 

The store ... It was woven through with every 


170 Gop oF MIGHT 


one o. his memories ... His parents had built it 
stone upon stone . . . They had begun building the 
store long before he, Samuel, was born . . . He had 
often heard them speak eagerly, wistfully, about that 
time . .. With all its seeming hardships and vicissi- 
tudes this period of their early married life, of their 
youth, had evidently left behind undying, tender mem- 
ories in his parents . . . They had dreamed that he, 
Samuel, would be standing in the store when they were 
gone ... They had often given expression to these 
dreams . . . But others succeeded them—not he, not 
their son . . . Others, while he was in America—in a 
new land—and building anew . . . He was building 
here as his parents had built tere—stone upon stone. 
. . . He was building, too, while his child was still 
unborn . 

He had made frequent resolutions not to delve into 
the past—and he was annoyed . . . He tried to shake 
off his thoughts . . . Let the dead bury the dead— 
yes ... “Let the dead bury the dead”... That 
came from the New Testament... 


Ty. 


He was plunging headlong into the past again, not 
only his past in the Russian ghetto, but the past of his 
race, in Jerusalem; the past of other races, civiliza- 
tions ,,.°. ‘The. New. Testament 2.) 7 @bristi cae 
Grief was stirring within him, painful reveries .. . 
Would the World ever break through the network of 
hate in which it was enmeshed? . . . Would it learn to 


SILENCE 171 


take simple truths simply? . . . Would people ever 
learn to understand each other? . . . Understand each 
other—nothing more... 

In the Russian pale no Jew ever spoke of the Gali- 
lean by name .. . If He was referred to at all it was 
as That Man or “‘Toluh” (the One who was hanged )— 
never as Jesus, or Joshua, as his name had been in 
the eLebrew'.:.).. 

That was in the ghetto in Russia . . . In America 
it was different. One of the foremost American rabbis 
—Samuel was following his sermons every Monday 
morning in the Chicago papers—was speaking of 
Jesus in the same breath with Moses and Hillel, as a 
great Hebrew teacher... 

He scorned, this American rabbi did, the ghetto 
conception of Jesus as a traitor to his people... 
The Young Preacher of Bethlehem and Nazareth was 
no renegade from his race . . . What had been done 
to the Jews by His followers and in His name, the 
rabbi asserted, was done long after Jesus was dead. 
. .. He lived and dieda Jew... 

Somewhere in his desk drawer was a copy of the 
New Testament. There were parts in it Samuel never 
tired of reading . . . They were the parts where Jesus 
spoke to his followers . . . What a passion, what a 
soul . . . And how typical of the Jewish idealist was 
His fathomless hate, and uncompromising, deadly de- 
fiance, of the overweaning and the overbearing .. . 

He was fumbling in his drawer for the copy of the 
New Testament when his gaze fell upon Jessie’s pic- 


172 Gop oF MIGHT 


ture that a mass of correspondence was obstructing 
from view. ‘Their parting three hours earlier came 
back *to him poignantly. 

Jessie had been as cheerful as a lark all morning. 
At the last moment, however, a loneliness seized her— 
he ascribed it to her condition—and if she had had 
her things with her then and there she would have 
gone with him back to the city . . . He must write to 
her at once... He was reaching out for pen, 
paper... 

Mr. Guenther, talking in a loud voice, pushed open 
the door and a tall, gray-headed man, with a pro- 
nounced stoop, entered. 


CHAPTER XIV. 
THE ROLL-CALL. 
I. 


T was Judge Arvold, the local Justice of the Peace. 
Samuel and Judge Arvold were old acquaintances. 
When Samuel first joined the Modern Woodmen 
Henry Arvold was the Treasurer of the Lincoln branch 
of the organization. From the first the Judge be- 
friended “the boy from Roosh-ya.”’ At meetings and 
gatherings he would introduce Samuel to the other 
members and saw to it that the boy was made to feel 
at home and had his share of the fun and amusement. 
Samuel always remembered Judge Arvold kindly. 

He rose and moved over a large leather chair in 
which the judge proceeded to make himself comfort- 
able. Mr. Arvold took a cigar from the box Samuel 
held out, lighted it and began to shower complimen- 
tary observations about the weather, the store, Sam- 
uel’s office... 

Yes, the judge was saying, his wife and daughter 
had spoken of the Waterman store frequently and with 
great enthusiasm, but it was his first visit to the place. 
And it certainly exceeded all expectations. 

Mr. Guenther, after listening to the compliments 

173 


174 Gop oF MIGHT 


paid the establishment and taking his due meed of 
the praise, bowed himself out of the office. No sooner 
were Judge Arvold and Samuel left alone than the 
judge suddenly lost all his fluency. 

Samuel chewed his cigar and waited. Judge Arvold 
no doubt had something to tell him; he would not be 
coming otherwise. 

“Mr. Waterman,” the justice finally cleared his 
voice and gave his face a barely perceptible turn, but 
one which was sufficient to keep their eyes from meet- 
ing, ‘“‘am I correct in taking you for a Hebrew?” 

Samuel experienced a sudden chill as if a chip of ice 
had rolled down his spine. 

“Why, yes,” he said, “I am a Hebrew, certainly.” 

“T supposed you were,” the magistrate brightened 
as if the announcement proved good news to him, “but 
I thought I would make sure before I put you to any 
bother.” 

“Bother?” 

“Well, in a way—yes,” Mr. Arvold smiled at Samuel 
reassuringly. 

“The point is,”’ the judge continued, ‘“‘that a country- 
man of yours is in trouble, Sam. He was brought 
before me this morning .. . 

A countryman of his in Lincoln? Samuel was puz- 
zled. Judge Arvold explained the matter readily 
enough. 

It seemed that there were a number of Samuel’s 
countrymen—Hebrews from Russia—in Lincoln. They 
were living back of the railroad tracks, in Locust Field. 


THE RoLtie-Caryu 175 


. . . All of them had come from the Old World within 
recent months, a year at the outside. They were ped- 
dlers, buying up old iron and the like. One of their 
number bought several barrels of bolts and spikes as 
junk. But the stuff, though rusty and seemingly old, 
turned out not to be junk at all, but a part of the 
railroad company’s equipment which had recently 
been stolen from its warehouse. 

“The peddler had no record as to who sold him the 
stuff, no receipt of any kind for his money, and the 
lawyer for the railroad company had him locked up,” 
Mr. Arvold concluded. 

“What’s his name?” Samuel sought to make sure 
that the peddler in question was a Jew. 

“Here it is,” Judge Arvold produced a piece of 
paper and spelled out the man’s name: S-E-G-A-L-O- 
W-I-T-Z. 

“‘Segalowitz,” Samuel repeated it at one gulp and 
both broke into a laugh at the performance. 

“Of course,” Judge Arvold continued with greater 
ease, ‘I had to hold him, seeing that the goods were 
found in his possession, but he is no thief; a blind man 
could see that. The man has been in this country only 
four months and knows scarcely more than two dozen 
words in English. He had no lawyer and no bail and 
appeared so helpless and bewildered that I felt right 
sorry for him. I was casting about for ways and 
means of helping the poor devil out, and thought of 
you. Perhaps being a countryman of his you might 
just naturally take an interest in him.” 


176 Gop oF MIGHT 


“Ves, certainly,’ Samuel was earnest again. “I 
shall get in touch with an attorney and we shall ar- 
range for bail—”’’ 

“Tl tell you what, Sam,” Judge Arvold leaned for- 
ward confidentially, “I don’t think you need go 
to all that trouble. ~ If you were just to call on the 
superintendent of the railroad company, Mr. Isham, 
and explain the situation to him, just repeat to him 
what I said to you here, I am confident he would have 
the man released without another word.” 

Very well, Samuel agreed, he would see the rail- 
road superintendent. It was near closing time., He 
would go up to Mr. Isham immediately after supper. 

“Much obliged, Sam,”’ Judge Arvold seemed heartily 
glad the matter was righting itself. 

When he was gone Samuel tried to recollect what 
it was he had been about just before Mr. Arvold had 
entered his office. He recalled it finally. It was a 
letter to Jessie. He was about to write to her, to cheer 
her up. He picked up the pen but could not get more 
than a few lines down on paper, nor were these lines 
particularly cheerful. His mind felt as if it had sud- 
denly been curtained off . . . All he could see or think 
about was the peddler, who was in the town lock-up, 
and the other Jews who were living in Locust Field. 
... They had been living there for months, Judge 
Arvold had said. It was a complete surprise to him— 
a surprise. 


THE ROLL-CALL 177 


II. 


It came out exactly as Judge Arvold had predicted. 
The railroad superintendent, whom Samuel had previ- 
ously known only slightly, proved to be very agree- 
able. Mr. Isham was nearly twice the age of Sam 
Waterman and was a man of experience. Directly 
the latter had outlined the facts in the case to him, 
the railroad superintendent stepped up to the. tele- 
phone and called the company’s lawyer, Tim Walsh. 

“Tim,” he spoke into the receiver, “you seem to 
have got the wrong man this morning. Yes, the wrong 
man. We don’t want to pester a poor foreigner who 
does not know our ways just because someone took 
advantage of his ignorance and sold him stolen stuff. 
I want the man released. Yes, released. At once, if 
possible; $s.) 

“Walsh says he will try to have the man out to- 
night,” the superintendent informed Samuel on re- 
joining him. 

“T am sorry we put the man to so much trouble,” 
Mr. Isham continued. ‘He is just a countryman of 
yours, you said?” 

“Yes, just a countryman,” Samuel affirmed. 

“And you were an immigrant yourself once?” Mr. 
Isham asked not unkindly. As the superintendent of 
one of the most important railroads passing through 
Lincoln he knew precisely the place Waterman occu- 
pied in the business life of the community. 

Again Samuel said yes, smiling. 


178 Gov oF MIGHT 


Mr. Isham was wondering about the immigration 
from Samuel’s country. Was it large? It might not 
be amiss for his company to give attention to the 
matter. 

Samuel, however, could not enlighten him. He had 
no idea what the immigration from Russia was like. 
His interests had for years centered entirely in Amer- 
ica, in Lincoln. 

The superintendent saw Waterman to the door. 
They shook hands cordially. 


ITT. 


At home Aunt Alvina was waiting for him. 

The Watermans occupied a house within two streets 
from Miss Dey’s home and Miss Dey would run in two 
or three times daily to see her niece. When on the 
Square she never failed to lock in on Samuel at the 
store. It gave her a thrill every time she came into 
the place. The stack of bills and correspondence, the 
stenographer in an adjoining room, the man keeping 
books—it was all so much like what she was once 
accustomed to dream. But it was no dream, it was a 
reality, and she was glad for Jessie. -Her fondness for 
Samuel, too, was increasing day by day. It was as- 
suming an intimate character, as ‘if she were a blood 
relation of his. Samuel reciprocated this fondness in 
precisely that spirit. Since the ban put on him by his 
aunt in Chicago, which made it impossible for him to 
enter Uncle Jacob’s house, especially, Miss Dey had 


THE ROLL-CALL 179 


come to stand out for him as family . . . It was as if 
she were his relative rather than Jessie’s. 

Repeatedly he and Jessie had requested her to come 
and live with them and repeatedly Miss Dey declined 
the request on the ground that she would not know 
what to do without her tape, thimble and sewing ma- 
chine . . . At her age, she argued, it was good to keep 
busy, otherwise one was apt to become fussy and dis- 
agreeable. Ve 

Nevertheless she was more lenient with herself since 
Jessie married. She no longer worked with that ten- 
sion which had characterized her formerly. She was 
turning away work instead of inviting it. The changed 
position of her niece had greatly propped her feeling 
of security ... 

Tonight, however, Aunt Alvina was not in her usual 
humor. Samuel was about to tell her of the trip to 
the country, to speak of Jessie, when she anticipated 
him with an unexpected question: Had he seen the 
evening paper? 

He had not. He seldom looked at the Lincoln paper 
before bedtime, and sometimes he would not look at 
it till breakfast the next morning. Miss Dey handed 
him her copy. 

On the front page was the story about the peddler. 
The incident of the finding of the stolen goods and the 
man’s arrest were related in much the same spirit as 
Judge Arvold had given it to Samuel. In fact it was 
from Judge Arvold’s court that the newspaper had 
obtained the account. Attached to the item about the 


180 Gop oF MIGHT 


peddler’s arrest was a description of the growing He- 
brew colony in Lincoln with a mention of their occu- 
pations. They were the men who came around to your 
back door to buy rags and metals. They led a sort of 
gypsy-like life and squatted early and late in their 
barns sorting and packing these materials and shipping 
them to Chicago, where there were factories buying 
the stuff and paying money for it. 

The appearance of these men was given by the 
writer. Most of them wore spade-like beards which 
they never shaved, this being contrary to the Hebrew 
religion. ‘The clothes they wore were shabby and 
ill-fitting. Most of them were unable to speak English 
and had a frightened, calamitous look about them. 

Miss Dey had for some months been giving away 
the sweepings from her dressmaking establishment to 
one such peddler regularly. She never knew that the 
man was a Jew. 

“‘Isn’t there anything you can do for the man, Sam?” 
she asked after Samuel had perused the account. ‘‘We 
don’t want to let a Hebrew go to prison here.” 

A veiled irritation seemed to be lurking behind her 
words, an inflection Samuel had never before noted 
in Aunt Alvina’s voice. He looked at her before an- 
swering. 

“Everything that could be done has been done al- 
ready,” he finally explained. He told of Judge Arvold’s 
visit to him that afternoon, of his cwn visit to Mr. 
Isham. ‘The man would probably be released that 
evening. 


THe Rovrt-Cans 181 


After hearing about Jessie, the place, the accom- 
modations she got at Angels’ Camp, Miss Dey left 
with a none too successfully screened abruptness and 
with a hurried, preoccupied air. Her wonted tran- 
quillity was gone and there was no mistaking her im- 
patience to get to where she would be by herself, alone 
with her thoughts. 


IV. 


When she was gone Samuel stood in the middle of 
the room and, puzzled, thought over the situa- 
tion. He felt like a little boy who had just been ad- 
ministered a reprimand by his teacher ... After 
some time he went upstairs and to bed, but he was 
not falling asleep. The events of the afternoon and 
evening were keeping him awake. These events were 
defining themselves in his thoughts; they assumed 
sequence. 

Yes, there was sequence to these events: Judge 
Arvold’s coming to iim with the story of the peddler’s 
unhappy plight, and his intercession for the man whom 
he did not know and had not seen, but solely because 
he was a Jew—there was sequence to it... The 
episode was a link in a distinctly familiar chain... 
Things had preceded it—things would follow it... 
Yes, things would follow. 

Dim, at first, but clearer and clearer as the night 
wore on, the incident with the peddler was crystalliz- 
ing in Samuel’s mind into something that was like a 
page from an old, old book . . . It was a roll-call, the 


182 Gop oF MIGHT 


dreaded, age-old, roll-call of his race . . . Ever so fre- 
quently, in the past, the roll of his people had been 
called. In one country, in another, it was: ‘Jews 
will stand up and be counted.” 

It had now been called in Lincoln . . . The episode 
with the peddler was a roll-call and he, Samuel, had 
answered it ... He had answered it as one of the 
race, and it would be so entered . . . No doubt, it 
would . . . He would be classed henceforward with 
his race first and with the world afterwards .. . 

Yes, he would be the Jew first and the man after- 
wards... 

And his plans had been otherwise . . . He had laid 
such a different foundation . . . His plans—his mar- 
riage . . . He had aimed to simplify his life . . . But 
he was not simplifying it . . . He was not at all sim- 
plifying it—not atall... 


CHAPTER XV. 
LOCUST FIELD. 
i 


N the next three days Samuel felt much after the 

fashion of a patient, who seems quite well during 
the day, but who takes a sudden turn for the worse 
as soon as night sets in . . . He was to go to Chicago 
the following week in connection with plans for adding 
several new departments to the store, and he and Mr. 
Guenther were at work on these plans. The days 
were busy and fairly content. Evenings, however, 
found him depressed and gloomy. 

Aunt Alvina was coming to the house regularly after 
supper. She would listen to what word he had had 
that day from Angels’ Camp, from Jessie, look in on 
the maid in the kitchen, and give orders for the meals 
next day. In Jessie’s absence Miss Dey was acting 
as housekeeper and was solicitous about Samuel’s com- 
fort. 

She smiled and chatted once again with her accus- 
tomed lightness. None the less there was a vague 
undercurrent of restraint in her voice. In her man- 


ner, too, Samuel discerned a faint embarrassment as 
183 


aK 


184 Gop oF MIGHT 


if there were something unsaid, unexplained between 
them that was craving for speech, for utterance .. . 

Neither of them brought up the subject of the He- 
brew peddler. Samuel, however, could not escape an 
awareness that the incident had raised a sudden bar- 
rier between them and that silence about it was not 
the end of the matter... 

He had heard nothing further about the incident. 
The morning following his visit to Mr. Isham, the 
Lincoln Sentinel contained a small item saying that 
the Hebrew, who was under arrest in connection with 
thefts from the railroad company’s warehouse, had 
been released. The police and the railroad officials 
found the man to be innocent. Nothing was said 
about Waterman’s interceding for the peddler with 
the railroad company’s superintendent. The matter 
was closed as far as he, Samuel, was concerned. 

Nevertheless he decided to visit Locust Field. If 
there was a colony of his countrymen in Lincoin he 
should know something about it. He was going to 
drive out that way, but changed his mind; he would 
walk over. 

Two evenings in succession he had started, but each 
time switched off in a different direction. He was not 
clear in his mind as to the purpose of his going there 
and it seemed to him that it ought to have a purpose. 
. . . On the third evening he dropped ali speculations 
and went to Locust Field. 


Locust FIELD 185 


II. 


Locust Field was a marshy stretch on the west side 
of Lincoln running close to the railroad tracks. It 
had a half dozen odds and ends of streets. They were 
not paved and there were no sidewalks except what 
each resident chose to lay in order to facilitate the 
approach to his house on rainy days. 

In the small, hunched dwellings lived street cleaners, 
railroad workers, watchmen. There were several 
boarding houses in the district which were noted for 
the drinking that was done in them. Two or three 
times a year, when a robbery had occurred, or the 
railroad company’s warehouses had been broken open, 
the police would come down to Locust Field to inter- 
view certain of its residents. 

Samuel had lingered on the way and by the time 
he reached the settlement back of the railroad tracks 
the sun had already set. He had not been in the vicin- 
ity in years and was looking over the place and the 
people curiously. He passed one street, another; they 
were short streets. He entered a third. 

A heap of scrap iron, twelve or fifteen feet high, 
rose from one of the yards. In the twilight haze it 
had a fanciful look like a distant pyramid . . . Sam- 
uel drew nearer and gazed before him at the house, 
the yard which was cluttered up with the broken 
frames of old mowers and reapers. 

A man came sidling out of the barn—an unmistak- 
able ghetto figure with a spacious black beard... 


186 Gop oF MIGHT 


The man locked the door behind him, tried the lock 
twice. Next he walked over to the wagon and fum- 
bled in it, covering things with an old canvas. 

Seemingly the man did not live in the house ad- 
joining the barn for he came out of the yard and 
walked up the street. Samuel followed. At a turning 
he came upon a block of eight or ten houses. Here 
every yard contained a pyramid-like heap of old iron 
like the one he had just left. 

He walked to the end of the block and crossed to 
the other side of the street. Several Jews were stand- 
ing on the wooden sidewalk, talking. He caught 
snatches of their conversation. It was about a letter 
one of them had received from the Old World... 

According to their speech the people hailed from the 
Same region or even district in the pale with Samuel. 
Some of them might conceivably have known his 
father, or, at any rate, his brother-in-law, the 
taDDh 

Samuel explored one or two other streets. Were 
there no Jewish families, Jewish women, children? 
Apparently not. The uncouth, shabby men, fresh 
from the ghetto, who were pioneering here were all 
there was to the little Jewish colony in Lincoln. Their 
wives and children were in the Old World. 

He turned back. The group of his countrymen 
on the sidewalk now numbered seven or eight. There 
were two or three younger men in the crowd. They 
were beardless, shaved. The little gathering was still 
discussing the letter from the Old World. 


Locust FIELD 187 


Samuel stopped scarcely half a dozen feet away. He 
saw the faces of the men and they saw his, but no 
one took any notice of him. He was not of them in 
appearance and they did not recognize in him one of 
their race. They went on talking undisturbed .. . 

Samuel lingered in the neighborhood till darkness 
swallowed up the houses, the people and the pyramid- 
like stacks of old iron. Then he turned toward home. 
He walked slowly trying to unravel his thoughts, his 
feelings ... 


III. 


On waking the next morning his mood was one of 
jubilance, like that of a boy on the last day of school. 
It was Saturday; that evening he would see Jessie. 
He was in ecstasy. 

It seemed to him that merely seeing Jessie would 
efface everything; the gloom of the past four days or 
rather nights; the undefined tension which had arisen 
between himself and Aunt Alvina; the irritation which 
the recollection of Judge Arvold’s visit to his office 
continued to incite. 

It was the busiest day of the week in the store and 
he was in demand constantly in one part of the build- 
ing, in another. Samuel moved about in flashes. Wher- 
ever he appeared the clerks behind the counters 
seemed as if electrified. The day’s sultry heat was 
forgotten and their wilted bodies braced and stiffened 
in response to the leashed tension in his features. 

Jessie was not out of his mind for an instant. Be- 


188 Gov oF MiIcHT 


tween jumps Samuel played with the thought of her; 
how he would look for her out of the train window 
(she would be standing on the platform waiting for 
him); how they would meet, embrace . . . It seemed 
to him that he had learned much about Jessie in the 
five days they had been separated, and he had learned 
even more about love. He had learned so much about 
love and play. : 

Yes, play . . . He must cease to be the Jew—he 
laughed inwardly—he must cease this everlasting 
analyzing, brooding, tormenting himself over little 
things, nothings . . . Life was there to be lived and 
not to be put under a glass like a butterfly for study 
and observation ... He must learn to take life as 
the people about him did—lightly, playfully ... 

Yes, he must learn to live in the present and not be 
forever digging into the ruins of the past, or pulling 
down the veils from the castles of the future ... He 
had been brooding, speculating out of all proportion 
in these last few days . .. That must end... The 
one unpardonable vice of his race was just this: it did 
not know how to play .. . 

As always, when in the heat of work, in the press 
of excitement, philosophic thoughts surged through his 
brain: Maxims from the Ethics of the Fathers, texts 
from the prophets, from the Talmud—all supporting 
his resolutions to stop this quibbling, this magnifying 
every incident that was unfavorable to him into a 
mountain . . . He had magnified the incidents of the 
last few days out of all proportion . . . His loneliness 


Locust FIELD 189 


probably had something to do with his state of mind, 
his longing for Jessie: It was the first time they were 
separated for longer than a day since they were mar- 
ried. Well, this loneliness was at an end. In a few 
hours he would see Jessie. 

The train for Angels’ Camp was leaving at 6:10. 
His grip was at the store; he had taken it from home 
at noon. Every time he ran into the office he would 
cast a glance at the grip as if they, the grip and him- 
self, had a confidence between them, as if this brought 
the hour of departure nearer. 

A little before five Aunt Alvina came. 

Samuel caught sight of her as she stood in the door- 
way of his office surveying the store. The noise and 
hum was deafening; the closing hour was approaching. 
Miss Dey was listening to this noise with absorption, 
as if trying to distinguish its various components. 
Such rush and activity had always fascinated her; it 
was like water to a thirsty person. She drank it in. 

Samuel joined her at the office. 

Aunt Alvina was solicitous about his journey: Did 
he have everything he wanted, everything Jessie had 
asked for? She was assured; he had taken every- 
thing. They sat chatting for some minutes about the 
ride, about Jessie . . . Aunt Alvina’s eyes were rest- 
ing softly upon him. The expression of the last few 
days was apparently gone from them and the old inti- 
macy had returned .. . It was as if she, too, had 
shaken off the doubts of the past few days. Samuel’s 
heart leaped up in him for joy... 


190 Gov oF MIGHT 


He was wanted on the floor and excused himself. He 
stayed away for a quarter of an hour and when he 
came back Miss Dey rose. 

She had no more than left the office when Horace 
Grant bounced in. A new bank was going up in Lin- 
coln. Ray Stevens was organizing it. It was still a 
matter of the strictést confidence, but he, Horace, had 
learned of it from Mr. McKay, the cashier at the 
Ridlon Bank with whom he was working, and he came 
down post haste to get in touch with Mr. Stevens and 
try to get in with the new bank right from the start. 

Horace outlined all this to his brother-in-law in 
one gulp as they stood there in the middle of the 
office. 

“Tt is the chance of a lifetime, Sam,” he pleaded, 
‘and you must help me land it. It would mean every- 
thing for me to get in with the new bank, to get in 
right, on the ground floor, so to speak.” 

Samuel was gazing at his brother-in-law in surprise. 
Horace was a changed man. He had never known 
him to talk with such enthusiasm, with so much fire. 
. . . But he could not pursue his thoughts further. 
There was not more than half an hour till train time. 

“Look here,” Samuel interrupted him, “we can talk 
these things on the train. I have my grip with me and 
you'll probably need a collar or something . . . Bet- 
ter run home and get it.” 

“T think,’ Samuel took another look at the clock, 
“vou’d better go to the depot straight from the house. 
We may miss the train if you try to come back here.” 


CHAPTER XVI. 
A RABBI’S DAUGHTER, 
T. 


S the train approached Angels’ Camp Samuel 
caught sight of Jessie standing on the platform, 
her wistful gaze eager, strained. About a dozen pas- 
sengers in all alighted and Samuel and Horace were 
among the last. When Jessie finally caught a glimpse 
of her husband a sudden melting came into her fea- 
tures ...In the next instant she recognized her 
brother following and quickly braced herself... 
Horace was welcome, but he would have been more 
welcome had he come a week or even a day later. 
The brief separation had been as eventful to Jessie as 
it was to Samuel and she had planned on having him 
all to herself that evening and the next day. There 
was so much she wanted to say to him zow, so much 
that concerned them both very deeply, vitally ... 
The three had supper together and then they strolled 
slowly up and down the road. Horace was speaking 
of the bank and of his plans for connecting up with 
it. These plans, it seemed, were largely dependent on 
what attitude his brother-in-law would take toward 
19I 


102 Gop oF MIGHT 


the bank, whether Samuel would or would not give 
the new bank his business. 

“T happen to know,” Horace was saying, “that Mr. 
Stevens will in the next few days approach a number 
of influential business men in Lincoln and will try to 
get them to give the new bank their accounts. I 
happen to know, also, that you are among the first 
Mr. Stevens will approach and I wanted to make sure 
that you would give him your co-operation . . . I have 
in fact—” Horace hesitated for some moments, ‘“‘prom- 
ised Mr. McKay that you would do so.” 

Mr. McKay, his immediate superior in Ridlon, Hor- 
ace further explained would be one of the officers of 
the new bank. If Samuel would make himself agree- 
able to Mr. Stevens, he, Horace, was practically as- 
sured of a position. 

Samuel tried hard to appear sympathetic. Never- 
theless he could not hide his uneasiness. He knew 
Mr. Stevens and the others who were going into the 
new bank. It was safe enough. But he had dealt 
with the Bank of Lincoln ever since—well ever since 
the beginning . . . Throughout his career the bank, 
its officials, had been nice to him and helpful—always. 
. . . It was not a pleasant thing to do, to transfer his 
business elsewhere . . . And it was not a fair thing. 
. . . Jessie seemed less aware of what her brother 
was saying than of the manner in which Horace was 
saying it, the quivering animation in his voice. There 
was only one thing that could explain this change in 
her brother—love. Horace was in love. Ordinarily 


A RABBI’S DAUGHTER 193 


she would have proceeded at once to worm out—if 
it needed worming out—the secret from him; who the 
girl was and where and when it all happened? On 
another occasion it would have given her no end of 
pleasure to do all this, but not now, not tonight. 

Tonight she was poignantly aware that Samuel was 
with her after what had seemed an interminable ab- 
sence, but that there was still a barrier between them 
and that that barrier was her brother. From time 
to time, as they strolled and Horace talked, she sought 
Samuel’s hand, slid her fingers into it and the 
barrier between them seemed broken and contact 
established. 

Jessie and Samuel reached their room close to eleven 
o’clock. 

It was a large corner room with four windows, “the 
best room in the house” as Samuel had ordered, and 
it was filled with moonlight. Two of the windows 
looked out upon a lake, while the other two looked 
up toward a mountain with a dark pine forest. 

Directly the door was shut behind them and before 
Samuel had had time to strike a match, Jessie put 
her arms about him and lifting her face up to his they 
were drinking each other in with their lips. He half 
walked with her, half carried her across the room, to 
the sofa. Clinging to one another, they sank down 
upon it. 

They were studying each other’s face and eyes in- 
tently in the pale moonlight, as if either or both had 
been through a long and perilous journey. 


104 Gop oF MIGHT 


ns been so worried about you,” she was mutter- 
ing, ‘‘so worried.” 

He clasped her closer and she yielded herself up to 
his caresses. It was some time before either of them 
spoke again. Finally she freed herself from his em- 
brace and sat up. 

“Sam,” Jessie asked, “is your father a rabbi?” 

“No,” he said, “why?” 

An expression half amused, half curious came into 
his face. 

“Tt is your sister’s husband then who is the rabbi?” 
she gently ignored his question. 

“Ves,” he said, ‘“my brother-in-law. But why do 
you ask?” The glint of amusement had left his eyes. 

A heavy silence hung between them for some mo- 
ments. Jessie finally broke it. 

“Tt was foolish,” she spoke haltingly, “but I have 
been worrying in the last few days about—your fam- 
ily ... The thought of religion ever coming between 


Samuel rose with great suddenness and walked over 
to the table. He struck a match and in the lamplight 
surveyed his wife hastily as if trying to make sure of 
something ... Yes, it was Jessie, his Jessie... 
Nothing ahout her had changed . . . A tiredness had 
suddenly come over him and he settled down into a 
chair—heavily. 

Jessie came up quickly and sat on the arm of the 
chair beside him. He took her hand and fondled it 
speechlessly for some moments. 


A RABBI’S DAUGHTER 195 


“What—has put this—into your head?” he spoke 
brokenly yet quickly. ‘This—about religion, I mean. 
Who talked to you about it?” Jessie was biting her 
lips in embarrassment. 

“Who put this into your head?” Samuel repeated. 
His voice, in spite of his effort at self-control, had a 
harsh sound and the words had rolled out of his mouth 
with an unmistakably foreign inflection. Always when 
he grew excited this foreign inflection would come 
back. Samuel colored deeply, but insisted none the 
less. Who had put these things about religion into her 
head? He would know, he had to know. 


1B i 


The matter which had set Jessie ruminating about 
the difference in religion between herself and her hus- 
band had come to her through one of the maids in the 
hotel, May. It was a song May had been singing. 
May hailed from Milwaukee, where she had been em- 
ployed in the bottling department of a large brewery, 
but had taken the position of a maid at the Blossom 
Inn for the summer as a lark. The particular song 
was the latest out and she was humming it from morn- 
ing till night. 

Samuel insisted that Jessie outline to him the con- 
tents of the song. She did. 

It was about a Jewish girl who had fallen in love 
outside her faith. The girl in the song was reminded, 
pleaded with: She was a “rabbi’s daughter” and “such 
she must remain.” She must renounce her love for 


196 Gov oF MIGHT 


the “Christian boy.” It was a love that would go 
unhallowed, it could not be sanctioned. She must 
pluck it from her breast; there was no alternative. 
The Jewish law was stern. And— 


00m 


“Tf you a Christian marry, 
Your father’s heart ’twould break.’’ 


In the last couplet the girl was dying. She had 
renounced her love as her religion had dictated, but 
her life was going also. 

“Ts this all?’’ Samuel asked. 

It was not all. Jessie had talked with the maid 
about Milwaukee, about the Jews there. The maid 
had told her an incident—a pathetic incident. 

“What was the incident?” Samuel pursued, relent- 
less toward himself, toward Jessie. 

The incident was this: 

A Jewish boy—in Milwaukee—had fallen in love 
with a Christian girl, married her secretly and then 
sent a friend to break the news to his orthodox 
father. The father sent back word to the son that 
he would disclaim him if he did not divorce his Chris- 
tian wife. The boy declined to let religion interfere 
with his marriage and the father disowned him. More, 
the old man declared his son to be dead and prayed 
and mourned for him as for one departed . . . After 
a month of this, the father suddenly passed away. 
He had grieved himself to death over his son’s mar- 
riage. 

“Ts this all mow?” Samuel asked again. 


A RABBI’S DAUGHTER 107 


This was all. 

Jessie stepped up to the mirror and began taking 
her hair down. Samuel’s frame had slumped deeper 
into the chair. 

“Pay no attention to these things,” he said after 
a silence, ‘‘it’s all nonsense.” 

“You mean it isn’t true?” she asked turning her 
face to him. 

“Oh, it may be true enough,” he replied without 
meeting her eyes, “but it is all nonsense none the 
less.” 

Jessie slipped into a kimono, reflected an instant, 
and walked across the room to the open window. 

The light from the lamp reached her but dimly. 
She was looking out upon the lake. The moon had 
cut a wide swath across it and the waters lay gently 
trembling and glistening like an armored coat. Be- 
yond the lake in the distance were dim outlines of 
farm houses, barns, windmills. A cool breeze was 
blowing. Jessie was breathing it in. Samuel came 
up and stood beside her. 

“Shall we sit up a while yet?” she suggested. 

He brought her a chair and himself sat down on 
the edge of the window sill. They were both looking 
out upon the lake. The noises coming from the water, 
the grass, the trees, served to intensify the stillness of 
the night. 

“Lovely, isn’t it?” Jessie turned her eyes full of 
rapture upon Samuel. 

“Ves,” he answered meditatively. 


198 Gop oF MIGHT 


More than her previous questions about religion, 
about the Jews, this enraptured remark about the 
panorama outside their window intensified to Samuel 
the difference of race between Jessie and himself, and 
his fascination for her because of this difference .. . 
How she loved nature—the things of nature... A 
field, a tree, a brodk—and she was happy... A 
beautiful sunset, a gold rimmed horizon in the west 
thrilled and delighted Jessie, as if it were a gift which 
nature had intended primarily for her. 

Nature ... That was something his race, his 
people, huddled for centuries in the ghettos of the 
Old World and denied the privilege of living on the 
soil, had no understanding for, had even come to look 
askance at, as if the laws of nature, like man’s laws, 
too, were not functioning for all alike... 

To Jessie nature was like a mother to come to when 
worried or distraught ... She was depressed now 

She was troubled. He, Samuel, must dissi- 
pate her troubles ... He must not let any mis- 
understanding take root between them. He must 
never allow it—not between them... Between 
them there should be harmony ... He must speak 
to her, he would speak ... 

But Jessie anticipated him. 

“Sam,” she said, her face permeated with tender- 
ness, “your father—would he grieve—as that man did 
in Milwaukee—if he knew you married a Christian 
girl?” 

Samuel felt as if a precious vase he was guarding 


A RABBI’S DAUGHTER 199, 


had been knocked out of his hands and was lying on 
the floor in a thousand fragments ... The frag- 
ments were his thoughts, his words, the wise convinc- 
ing words he was preparing to utter to Jessie to assure 
her, to comfort her... 

He did not speak; he was in a daze. 

“Would he?” Jessie repeated gently, ‘‘would your 
father grieve like that?” 

Samuel made a move as if to rise and go, but Jessie 
put her hand upon his arm. | 

“Come,” she pleaded, “don’t be angry... It 
concerns me—much, and I want to know.” 

There was no way out and he answered. 

“T suppose he would grieve—if he knew. But he 
will never know.” 

“Suppose your father came to know?” 

“How can he? He is in Europe. He will never 
come here.” 

“But suppose he did?” Jessie persisted. ‘Suppose 
somebody wrote him—your aunt in Chicago, for in- 
stance? You said once your uncle was reasonable, but 
that she—she was dead against us . . . Suppose your 
father did come to know that I am not Jewish?” 

A sullen look came into his eyes. 

“Well, then he would know,’ Samuel replied. “It 
could not make any difference to us here... And 
we cannot all be alike, think alike.” 

He rose. This time Jessie interposed no objection 
and he walked over to the bed and sat down on it. 
After a lapse of some moments Jessie came up and 


200 Gop oF MIGHT 


sat down beside him. She put her hand on his 
shoulder. 

“Sam, dear,” her voice faltered and the words stuck 
in her throat as if they had become dilated, spongy. 
“Sam—I—I would just as soon—join your church— 
if this peule make aes more agreeable to your 
family 

He opened his monty as if to speak, but she seized 
his arm and pleaded: 

“Let me finish: I’ve been wanting to tell you this 
all week. I was going to write this to you yesterday 
—the day before ... I would just as soon join your 
church ... Iam not attached to any particular de- 
nomination; none of us are... Father raised us in 
a free sort of belief: God—kindness—justice ... He 
was very broadminded, father was... He never 
took the miracles in the New Testament literally, al- 
though he had even lost a school once on account of 
his disbelief in these things... But he never 
wavered in his ideas .. .” 

Samuel’s eyes were hot and dry ... There was a 
bursting in his head, a crashing ... Shells were 
breaking open and their contents spilled... 
Thoughts, memories, doubts were oozing out of these 
shells, oozing everywhere ... Judge Arvold’s visit 
to his office—his pilgrimage to Locust Field—Aunt 
Alvina ... And now Jessie—Jessie running from 
herself, running to his church for ease of mind— 
What did it mean?—Where would it end? ... 

A hysterical laugh was welling up from his chest, 





A RABBI’S DAUGHTER 201 


welling into his throat . . . He choked it down with 
an effort ... Controlled himself... 

He fumbled for his watch, found it... 

“Tessie,” he said weakly, “it is midnight. Don’t 
let us start talking religion now. We'll never get a 
wink of sleep if we do V5 





TIT. 


A strand of hair falling from Jessie’s shoulder upon 
his neck woke him. Samuel opened his eyes and 
they confronted those of Jessie. Supporting herself 
on one arm she was gazing at him fondly, tenderly as 
a mother might gaze upon the face of a sleeping 
childs... 

He sat up and looked about as if trying to recall 
something. 

“Been up long?” he asked. 

No, just a little while.” 

Through the open windows came the scent of the 
warm earth. Samuel was gazing across the room 
toward the mountain-side with its pine trees, each ris- 
ing higher than the preceding. The tree tops glisten- 
ing with dew looked like children whose heads had 
been freshly washed and combed... Samuel 
thought of his own head. The inside of it, too, felt 
as if it had undergone a renovating process during 
the hours of sleep ... The pain and heaviness of 
the night before were gone... And Jessie? 

She was lying down, resting. There was repose 
in her face, eyes—that repose of body and spirit 


202 Gop oF MIGHT 


which was distinctly not of his, Samuel’s people, which 
only a race that was at home on this earth, that 
always had been at home in the world, could possess 
. . . It was the repose that only Gentiles knew . . 

It was this repose, this feeling that she had an 
inalienable place in the world, which no one could 
claim, no one dispute—this feeling which had been 
with Jessie since her birth, which had been in the 
blood of her people long before she was born, and 
which he, Samuel, had only lately been trying to ac- 
quire—that had drawn him toward her from the 
moment they first met. This look of repose had held 
him in fascination since .. . It was fascinating him 
now... 

She had offered to become one of his race ... He 
would never permit it... No... No... No 

He would not deprive her of that mental and 

physical tranquillity, which centuries of free, dignified 
living had instilled in her blood . . . She should not 
be made to taste the chill and bitterness of exile—Jew- 
ish exile . . . Sheshould not knowit ... His child 
should not know it... 

She was smiling now. The frown left Samuel’s 
face and his head dropped beside her on the pillow 

He gathered her in his arms and pressed her 

to himself until he could not distinguish the beating 
of her heart from his own ... Their breathing had 
become one; he could not tell her apart from himself. 


CHAPTER XVII. 
FORGIVENESS. 
Tj 


HE last week in September a letter came bearing 
Jacob Gold’s return address on the envelope, 
but the handwriting was not that of his uncle. The 
letter was from his little cousin, Bessie, Gold’s young- 
est daughter. Father had been ill, she wrote, but was 
better now, and he wished Samuel to call on them when 
he next came to Chicago. Ske was writing, she ex- 
plained, because it was before the holidays and father, 
in particular, was very busy... 

“Before the holidays?” Oh yes, Samuel recalled. 
It was the month of the Hebrew New Year and of 
the Day of Atonement ... New Year... Day of 
Atonement ... It was the traditional “season of 
forgiveness” among his people, the season when fam- 
ily feuds and differences were adjusted and old hates 
were not allowed to be carried over into the New 
Year ... Did this perchance have anything to do 
with his uncle’s writing? 

Samuel reflected .. . He had been to Chicago the 


week before and had not planned to go there again 
203 


204 Gop oF MIGHT 


for some time. He changed his plan now. He would 
go the next morning, 


“Hello,” Samuel called out with a peculiar uncer- 
tainty as he stood in the entrance to his uncle’s store. 
He let the door come to slowly, while gathering a quick 
impression of the place. Things were in disarray. 
His uncle was not in the accustomed spot behind the 
counter; his aunt stood there. 

Mrs. Gold answered his greeting with an indis- 
tinguishable mumble and lowered eyes. Before Samuel 
could cross over to her and extend his hand, she started 
away in the direction of their living rooms, shutting the 
door behind her. 

Samuel was deathly pale. He sat down, but rose 
again after a moment and stood shifting his weight 
from one foot to the other. 

It was some little time before the door opened again 
and his uncle shuffled into the store. 

Jacob Gold had been lying down and before enter- 
ing had dabbed his face and eyes with cold water, and 
had combed his rapidly whitening hair and beard. 
There was no vigor in his handclasp, despite his evi- 
dent delight at seeing Samuel again... He mur- 
mured something about taking a nap. To Samuel it 
was plain, however, that it was not a nap his uncle 
was taking—he was slowly becoming an invalid... 
Jacob Gold’s features were drawn with pain, which his 
smile could not hide. His head and shoulders seemed 
to be straining forward, as if in an effort to break 


FORGIVENESS 205 


loose from the inward weight that was pulling, dragging 
ae them 2) 2), 

Samuel did not seem to know what to do with his 
eyes. They were stark with horror and refused to 
yield, if not to calmness, at least to discretion .. . 

“You are looking—fine,” his uncle was saying, and 
Samuel somehow gained the impression that the oppo- 
site was true: that he was not looking at all well and 
that this was precisely what his uncle had noticed 
about him. 

“And at home—is everything well at home?” Jacob 
Gold pursued, aware of his nephew’s discomfiture, but 
pretending to see nothing, understand nothing .. . 

“Ves, all was well—quite,” Samuel finally managed 
to bring out a few words. 

They were alone in the store; Aunt Minna had 
stayed behind in the living room. Jacob cast his eyes 
about as if in search of something and then suggested 
“the park.” There was a tiny square in the neighbor- 
hood with trees and grass. He and Samuel had been 
over that way before. Hadn’t they better go down 
to the park for a little while? The afterncon was so 
warm. 

Samuel nodded affirmatively and Jacob Gold dis- 
appeared again in the living room. He emerged a few 
moments later with coat and cane. 

In the park both were at ease and Samuel learned 
many things. In the first place about his uncle’s 
health. Jacob Gold was no longer attempting to mask 
his condition, as if it were best for Samuel to know 


206 Gop oF’ MIcHT 


the truth ... Yes, he was just getting over a par- 
ticularly bad spell of illness . .. And altogether he 
was not getting on well... His heart was bad; 
there was a leak there and it was irremediable. The 
only thing to do, according to the doctor, was to throw 
off ballast constantly ... This he was doing. He 
was working little and resting much—taking to his 
bed any time he felt a bit taxed ... The work in 
the store was now resting almost entirely upon Aunt 
Minna’s shoulders... 

Samuel inquired about his father and again his 
uncle spoke to him with a frankness which he had 
hitherto never permitted himself. No, he had not 
heard from Samuel’s father directly. Indirectly, how- 
ever, he had heard. From some of their countrymen 
who had arrived from the Old World recently, Gold 
had learned that David had become almost a part of 
his daughter’s family. Not expecting ever to see 
America and half way surmising that his son, living 
among Gentiles, had strayed far afield from the ortho- 
doxy in which he had been brought up, Samuel’s 
father had seemed to resign himself to the inevitable 

David in fact was refraining from making too 
close inquiries about the New World and what Samuel 
was doing there for fear that he might learn of things 
he would rather not know... 

“Your father seems to have reached a kind of com- 
promise with his conscience, with his faith,’ Jacob 
Gold said. ‘Perhaps it is just as well... All life 
is a compromise—that of the Jew in particular... 





FORGIVENESS 207 


To live the Jew must make sacrifices ... This had 
always been true... .” 

There was a strange penetration in Gold’s gaze 
as he was speaking. Samuel appeared to himself 
as a book—a book in which his uncle was turn- 
ing the pages ...Some of the pages his uncle 
turned over hastily. Over others he delayed, 
lingered... 

Gold was asking about Jessie: their life together. 
There was a hush in his voice as if he had suddenly 
entered a sick room ... Was Jessie well? he asked. 
And did Samuel perchance carry a photograph of his 
wife with him, a picture? 

He did. 

Samuel had several snapshots of Jessie in his pocket 
and produced them. 

Jacob took the photographs with nervous fingers and 
was regarding them thoughtfully .. . 

“Do you mind—if I keep one?” Gold’s voice was 
faintly tremulous. 

He could keep one, of course. He singled out a 
print that showed Jessie’s features most clearly. Put- 
ting the print away carefully among some papers in 
an inside pocket, Gold continued to examine the re- 
maining photographs appraisingly, as if he were try- 
ing to reconstruct the person, her mind, her character 
from the fleeting impressions registered on the square 
pieces of glazed paper. 

The mission of their journey to the little park 
seemed fulfilled. It was time to return. They rose. 


208 Gov oF MIGHT 


Gold walked slowly, stopping several times for a brief 
rest. 

Aunt Minna left the store the moment the two en- 
tered, going into the living room. 

“T’ll go in and talk to her,” Samuel said without 
looking at his uncle. 

“Tf—you like,” Gold answered with a gesture of 
resignation. 


IT. 


Mrs. Gold was seated near the dining room table, 
fumbling in her work basket. 

“So you are really angry at me?” Samuel asked, 
coming within a few feet of her. 

Mrs. Gold looked up at him for an instant and then 
her gaze lost itself in the work basket once more. 

“No, why should I be?” she replied with a sarcastic 
laugh, “no-o-o!” 

“Why should one be angry at him?” she continued, 
as if she were addressing not Samuel but a third party. 
“What has he done? A mere trifle, a bagatelle! He 
has just gone—and become an apostate—that’s 
BAL) bee? 

“T have not become an apostate,” Samuel’s face 
flushed a deep red. ‘‘I have done nothing of the sort. 
I have not renounced my religion, I have not denied 
my people ... No one has asked me to renounce 
anything.” 

“‘No-o,” Mrs. Gold’s voice was cold and metallic. 
“He has not renounced anything .. .” 


FORGIVENESS 209 


“T have not renounced anything,” Samuel repeated 
firmly. 

His aunt looked up at him, her eyes blazing. 

‘“‘And what about children—aren’t you going to have 
children?” 

“We are,” he answered. 

“And will you raise them—as Jews—with a Chris- 
tian mother?” 

“T shall raise them as men—as men and women,” 
Samuel measured his words. 

“As men and women?” Mrs. Gold repeated after 
him with a harsh sneer. 

“Ves, as men and women,” Samuel was uttering his 
words slowly. He had rehearsed this little speech often 
enough in his thoughts and was not going to lose any 
of its effect in the process of delivering it. “This is a 
free country. We all believe in one God, Jew and 
Christian alike, and there is no compulsion to join one 
denomination or another .. .” 

“That is more of your uncle’s talk,” Mrs. Gold in- 
dicated with her head in the direction of the store. 
“Did you ever see men and women in this world— 
yet? ... I have lived close on to fifty years and I 
have not seen them. I have met Jews, Christians, 
Mohammedans—but I have not met just men and 
women ... You are dreaming just as your uncle has 
been dreaming all his life—all his life... In his 
case I was there to see at least that no harm came 
from his dreaming, while in your case i 

“God, Oh God,” she took her head between her 





210 Gop oF MIGHT 


hands and began to sway to and fro, her frame con- 
vulsed with sobbing .. . 

“How could you?” She looked up at Samuel with 
streaming eyes, her words coming between gulps. 
“How could you—do this—to us—to your mother? ... 
Your mother, your father... ’Twere different if 
they hadn’t brought you up properly, if they had been 
nobodies . . . But you were raised so well—they had 
raised you so well... You were not a common, 
thoughtless boy . . . On the contrary you were edu- 
cated, well educated in the Talmud, in the law... 
Your parents had taken such pains with you—had 
brought you up in piety ... Your mother will find 
no rest in her grave.” 

There was no defying his aunt’s tears—her twitch- 
ing distorted face and mouth ... He spoke plead- 
ingly: His mother would have wanted him to be 
happy ... She would have wanted him to marry the 
woman he loved . . . Surely Aunt Minna ought to be 
able to understand such things... Love... 
Happiness ... This was not like Russia—it was 
America ... Religion was a matter between one’s 
self and one’s conscience. The law did not interfere 
in such matters . 

“Love, happiness,” Mrs. Gold was wiping her tears 
with the end of her apron. “Of course I have under- 
standing for such things—but not with a Chris- 
Raa lie 

“YT knew it would come to this,’” she was moaning 
dry-eyed a minute later. “I knew no good would 


FORGIVENESS 211 


come from letting you live alone with Christians for 
eight, for ten years ... I warned your uncle re- 
peatedly to call you back to the city... But he 
wouldn’t listen to me . . . He wanted you to be dif- 
ferent, he said ... Well you are different all right 
enough ... You certainly are not a Jew any longer 
I don’t care what you have or have not re- 
nounced, but you are not a Jew—with a Christian 
wife, with children to grow up uncircumcised, Chris- 
tian x 
Nevertheless when Samuel extended his hand to her 
on parting she took it. He bade his uncle a hasty good- 
by as if he had already overstayed his time and must 
rush’... 





ITI. 


The train was half an hour late and it was nearly 
midnight when Samuel reached home, but Jessie was 
awake, waiting for him. The table was set and she 
went into the kitchen to prepare a light lunch while 
Samuel was washing. As he was finishing his coffee 
and had lighted a cigarette Jessie observed that the 
trip seemed to have wearied him more than usual. 

Samuel muttered something about the weather: the 
day had been very warm in Chicago. It did not es- 
cape Jessie, however, that his weariness seemed not 
so much of the body as of the mind. 

“Ts your—your uncle—well?” she asked circum- 
spectly. 

Any reference to family, especially his family, she 


212 Gop oF MIcHT 


had noticed, was setting Samuel on edge of late. In- 
deed even now he looked about with the air of one 
expecting some calamity to break over him momen- 
tarily. 

His uncle? Yes, his uncle was well—that is, con- 
sidering 

He described briefly the state of Jacob Gold’s 
health. He did not mention Mrs. Gold and said not 
a word about the interview he had had with her. 





But Jessie divined that there was an interview between — 


them ... In her own mind she even surmised what 
the nature of the interview had been... Samuel’s 
complete enervation was not for nothing... 

She urged a brief rest after his meal before retiring 
and they stepped into the sitting room... Jessie 
sank into a settee and Samuel sat down beside her. 
She took hold of his hands and put her face between 
them. 

Both were silent. She lifted up her head to him, 
smiling. He drew her to himself. 

Her frame was united with his in one consuming 
embrace. She was breathing against him. The fire 
of his kisses seemed to be dissolving her as a mist, 
carrying her to the clouds. She came back to earth 
again with a deep sigh. 

“What is it?” he asked. 

“T have been thinking,” she said, “what a beautiful 
world it would be—if there were only us two in it— 
just you and I.” 

“T guess it will be just you and I, Jessie,” he said 


FORGIVENESS 213 


with an attempt at a laugh. “It looks as though it 
might be you and I—against the whole world . . .” 

Jessie sat bolt upright. 

“Tf it is to be you and I against the whole world,” 
she said firmly, “then that’s all there is to it. We'll 
face the world.” 

He took her in his arms once more. 

“Brave girl,” he said in a voice that was mixture of 
jest and sadness, ‘‘you don’t know what you have 
undertaken. We Jews are a sorry lot We are 
such a troubled, unhappy race 2? | 

But Jessie’s mood for seriousness was already gone. 

“Guess what I have been reading tonight,” she said, 
as she proceeded to muss up his hair. 

Samuel could not guess. 

“Give up,” she said in child fashion, “then Ill tell 
you. I have been reading in the Old Testament—the 
story of Ruth 3 

“The story of Ruth?” 

Vas,” 

“And——”’ Samuel waited. 

“And,” she repeated, pushing her face roughly 
against his, “if I were not married to you I would run 
off and become a Jewess .. .” 














BOOK FIVE: CLOSING GATES. 





CHAPTER XVIII. 
A TENANT. 
I. 


ROM behind the glass partition in his office 
Samuel was gazing out upon the people in the 
store and listening to the hum of their voices . . 
In the dim recesses of his brain figures—twos and 
threes and fives and nines—were flashing, twinkling, 
like lanterns trying to convey a signal from far off... 
He was aware of their message... It was a big 
day at the store. In fact it promised to be one of 
the big business days of the year, although Christmas 
was still a month off, and the holiday season was just 
beginning ... The figures doing acrobatic stunts in 
the depths of his mind represented the probable volume 
of business the store was likely to do before night. 
It was a most gratifying total. Two or three seasons 
earlier Samuel would have thrilled at the vision of 
these figures—would have thrilled at his success . . . 
His satisfaction with these figures now was not with- 
out an undercurrent of futility ... 
It was Saturday afternoon and the out of town 


trade, people from the farms and nearby villages, pre- 
217 


218 Gop oF MIGHT 


dominated. ‘They were German, Irish, Norwegian, 
Swiss. Most of them showed traces of the country of 
their origin in looks and speech. Some still had diffi- 
culty in making themselves understood in the English 
language. Nevertheless there was an air of stability 
about them, of security ... They were all becoming 
firmly rooted in the new earth ... Each and every 
one of them seemed to regard the land of his adoption 
as a sort of co-operative enterprise in which he was, 
after a fashion, a stockholder, a rightful, if not equal 
partner . 

Formerly Samuel had shared this feeling of pro- 
prietorship in America along with all these newcomers 

.. But for some time now that feeling had been 
slipping from him—slipping .. . 

There were periods, lasting sometimes only a few 
minutes and then again extending over days and 
nights, when Samuel, in spite of all efforts to do so, 
could not shake off a sense of being a tenant—merely 
a tenant... The others, the Germans, the Norwe- 
gians, the Irish were owners, while he was more like 
a lessee, who is given temporary possession of things 
only . .. His wealth, his labor, all that he had built, 
was built upon somebody else’s earth and he might 
be told any time to pick up and go, to make room for 
others, claiming greater rights... 

Between him and the people about him, to his dis- 
may, old spectres were coming to life again and un- 
expected chasms were arising ... Even his home 
was not free from these chasms ... In fact it was 


A TENANT 219 


in his home that these chasms were finding their 
source ... 


it. 


With the birth of little Grant—they named their 
first-born after Jessie’s father, Charles Grant—a cer- 
tain awkwardness had come into Samuel’s life. Dif- 
ferences the existence of which he had scarcely been 
aware of were forcing themselves to the surface— 
were becoming marked. Sundays, in particular, had be- 
come a problem. 

Prior to the arrival of the infant Sunday fener 
had been a joy to them. He and Jessie would spend 
them together. In the first months after their mar- 
riage, in the spring and summer, they would rise 
early and go riding into the country or about the 
lake. Later, when the doctor cautioned Jessie not to 
fatigue herself, they spent their Sunday forenoons at 
home, sleeping late and resting about the house. 

Little Grant made no distinction between Sunday 
morning and any other morning. He woke and de- 
manded attention at the usual hour. Seven o’clock 
would find Samuel out of bed. Jessie would be up a 
trifle later. She was completely engrossed in the in- 
fant and had no time for anyone or anything else. 
Samuel now found the entire Sunday forenoon on his 
hands—and the thing had become uncomfortable, and 
even painful. 

With the coming of the child Miss Dey had made 
an end of her dressmaking and had come to live with 


220 Gop oF MIGHT 


them. Jessie was relieved and grateful: Aunt Alvina 
was running the house from the kitchen to the nursery. 
But Samuel, though he had been as insistent about 
Aunt Alvina’s coming as Jessie, was less at ease. Miss 
Dey had introduced a new atmosphere into the house 
——an atmosphere that had been foreign to it hitherto. 

There was nothing definite Samuel could set out 
against this atmosphere. There was nothing deleteri- 
ous about it. It was a home, a family atmosphere, 
nothing more... Nevertheless Samuel could not 
escape a feeling of being at a disadvantage in it, of 
being worsted by this new atmosphere. There was 
something dominantly aggressive about it . . . Jessie, 
he imagined, would feel the way he did if zs mother 
had been alive and had come to have a say in the 
running of their household. There were times, par- 
ticularly on the forenoons of Sundays and holidays, 
when he had come to feel himself like a stranger, an 
outsider, in his own home... 

On such mornings Aunt Alvina and, under her in- 
fluence, Jessie were living in a world in which he, 
Samuel, had never been initiated, and there seemed 
no possibility of his becoming a part of this world, 
in the manner in which Horace, for example, was a 
part of it. Their conversation ran differently on such 
occasions. They employed turns of speech which were 
new and unfamiliar to him. He had never heard them 
before . . . Or if he had, it was in that misty period 
of his life before he came to America, and in another 
language ... 


A TENANT 227 


Between him and Aunt Alvina a peculiar relation- 
ship had arisen. They were on cordial terms during 
the week. On Sunday mornings, however, neither 
seemed quite able to disguise a certain feeling of aloof- 
ness from the other... 

Aunt Alvina was never openly censorious of Samuel. 
But on Sunday morning, her gaze and manner con- 
veyed a certain silent and firm disapprobation such 
as is reserved for those who grow thoughtless of the 
canons of good taste... Samuel got the distinct 
impression that he was somehow in the wrong place, 
doing the wrong thing; that no matter how exemplary 
his conduct as a man might be during the week, as a 
husband and the head of a family on Sunday morn- 
ing, Aunt Alvina considered him a complete disappoint- 
ment ... Months passed... 

One Sunday morning Miss Dey found him in the 
parlor, engrossed in a stack of store correspondence, 
and could not keep back a taunt: Sunday was no time 
for a man to be about with a weekday mind... 
She smiled not unkindly, as if trying to send these 
words on their mission with as little sting as possible. 
To Samuel, however, they were like the lash of a 
ENOUGH. YS), 

She had laid bare his most vulnerable spot. In a 
flash she had disclosed the root of all his awkwardness 
on Sunday ... He had himself been groping in that 
direction, been discerning it dimly ... There could 
be no more groping now. It was clear—the issue be- 
tween him and his household, between him and the 


222 Gop oF MIGHT 


rest of Lincoln, was unmistakable . .. Whether she 
was aware of it or not, Aunt Alvina had made it clear. 
She had torn the veil with one rent... 


A weekday mind... That was at the base of 
difference between them. A weekday mind—on Sun- 
days ... Physically, in dress and appearance, he 


had approximated his townspeople, his Christian 
neighbors, he was one of them. Spiritually, however, 
he and they had remained on different planes .. . 

He had adopted the Christian Sunday as a matter 
of convenience, of external conformity, as he had 
adopted many other American, Christian, ways and 
customs ... But he had no spiritual attachment, 
no exalted feeling, for Sunday, beyond the fact that it 
was a day of rest. Monday, Wednesday, any other 
day in the week would have suited him equally well 
as a day of rest, had the people about him chosen to 
make a holiday of that day. 

It was not so with the other inhabitants of Lincoln. 
It was not so with Aunt Alvina It was not so with 
Jessie—not even with Jessie. To them the day had 
a spiritual significance. To them Sunday was Sab- 
bath. It was a day hallowed by time, by tradition, 
memory ... It had been their Sabbath, the sabbath 
of their parents, for centuries, for a thousand years, 
or longer .. . To them Sunday was a day bound up 
with sentiment, with beauty, with a loftiness of 
SPITIC Yt), 

Sunday had the same significance for Jessie, for 
Aunt Alvina, for the people of Lincoln that Saturday 


A TENANT 223 


—his Sabbath, the Jewish Sabbath, which America 
had swept into oblivion—had had for him in his child- 
hood in the Old World ... 

The plain matter of fact was—and as the weeks 
and months went by the thought was coming to rest 
upon him with increasing melancholy and weight— 
that he had been swayed by visions rather than by 
facts. He had let his imagination, his dreams run 


away with him... He had entirely misapprehended 
the influence of the church in the lives of the people 
about him... He had underestimated the force of 


centuries of habit and tradition in their lives. The in- 
fluence of the church was everywhere—even in his 
own home—yes, in his own home... It was a 
Christian home ... Everything about their life, his 
life, Jessie’s life, the child’s life, was regulated in 
accord with Christian canons, with Church ethics ... 
Jessie was not conscious of this; it was in her 
blood ... 

He was meditating over these things one Sunday 
morning nearly a year after the birth of little Grant, 
when a memory of the side entrance to his store flashed 
across his mind ... And he wondered how this had 
failed to occur to him sooner ... It was a very un- 
obtrusive entrance. His coming and going would 
scarcely be noticed. A splendid place to get away 
to now and then Sunday mornings. He rose quickly 
and putting on his coat and hat left the house .. . 

People were already on their way to church... 
They were going in families and singly, on foot and in 


224 Gop oF MIGHT 


buggies ... Boys and girls were going. Children 
were carrying their Sunday School texts. Several 
people recognized him. They nodded. There was a 
festive spirit in the greeting, different than on week 
days... 

The churchgoers were becoming numerous. ‘There 
seemed to be no end of people who knew him, greeted 
him. At the nearest crossing he turned off into a side 
street and continued his walk to the store at a swifter 
pace, as if bound on a pressing errand... 


CHAPTER XIX. 
THE BIG CHURCH. 
I. 


HEY named the second child, a girl, after his 

mother, Sarah. Samuel was vaguely conscious 
that in naming his children after the dead he was fol- 
lowing an old and distinctly Hebrew custom... 
From the moment he first saw the infant daughter 
he was reminded of his mother and he wanted her 
named Sarah... 

The birth of Sarah coincided with the announce- 
ment of Horace’s engagement. 

Horace had been doing very well in his position 
with the new bank, the Commercial National Bank 
of Lincoln, and there seemed to be no question of his 
future with the institution. He had been with the 
bank from the day it first opened-—there was a vague 
rumor that he had even been helpful to the bank 
before it was opened ... At any rate the cashier, 
Mr. McKay, was a friend of his and the president, 
Mr. Ray Stevens, was known to be favorably disposed 
toward young Grant. Several of the older men at the 
bank, with years of experience behind them, were be- 


gining to look up to Horace with a certain deference. 
225 


226 Gop oF MIGHT 


There was no telling when he might be jumped over 
a dozen heads and be made their superior .. . 

The “young lady,” as the local newspapers stated 
in their announcements, to whom Horace Grant was 
becoming engaged, was Gertude Allen of Ridlon, 
where Mr. Grant had formerly held a position at the 
bank. The young lady’s father was a well known 
merchant in that town while Miss Allen was active 
in church work, and was a promgnent member of the 
Epworth League. 

Shortly after the engagement was announced her 
father visited Lincoln on a matter of business. He 
spent the better part of an afternoon with Samuel 
at the store and was enthusiastic. He had heard about 
the Waterman department store from Horace, but 
what he saw exceeded all his expectations. His store 
at Ridlon, which Mr. Allen had always considered a 
model of up-to-dateness and enterprise, by compari- 
son appeared frontier-like and primitive indeed, and 
he freely admitted it. 

He was asked to stay over a day and take Sunday 
dinner with them. There was a train leaving for 
Ridlon at six o’clock Sunday evening which would 
bring Mr. Allen home in good time for a night’s rest 
and business the next day. He agreed to this ar- 
rangement. 

There was a great to-do at the Waterman home 
that Sunday morning. Aunt Alvina and the maid were 
continually busy in the kitchen and Jessie, when not 
looking after the child, was coming to the aid now of 


Tue Bic CHURCH 227 


one, now of the other. Aunt Alvina and Jessie were all 
Horace had in the way of family and they meant to 
show Horace and themselves to ie best advantage in 
Mr. Allen’s eyes. 

A little before ten Horace came to the house. 
There was a troubled look in his face of which Samuel 
had instantly become aware. 

“Ts anything the matter?” he asked. 

There was nothing the matter, Horace answered. 
He tried to appear casual, but could not hide his 
embarrassment over the fact that Samuel had read his 
face... At the first opportunity Horace disap- 
peared in the kitchen in search of Aunt Alvina. 

Samuel did not go to the store that morning as he 
was wont to do on other Sunday mornings. Instead 
he repaired to the parlor, picked up an almanac, which 
he had received a day or two earlier, and was looking 
it through. 

It was here Jessie found him half an hour 
later. 

She too seemed embarrassed, as embarrassed as 
Horace had been a while earlier. She stood in the 
room without knowing what to do, or say. 

“What has happened?” Samuel asked apprehen- 
sively. 

A premonition of something unpleasant that was 
about to occur was upon him. Jessie grasped the back 
of a chair for support. It was hard to maintain her 
self-control under her husband’s gaze. She never 
could say things half-way to him... Samuel was 


228 Gop OF MIGHT 


so insistent on having everything completely out... 
She pulled herself together finally. 

“Horace was in a few minutes ago,” she began. 
“He is kind of worried ... Mr. Allen, you know, is 
a Methodist, and a strong churchman ... It would 
—well, it might sort of put him out, if we sat down to 
dinner without a blessing .. .” 

Samuel, who had stood up while his wife was speak- 
ing, now sought the back of the nearest chair. He 
half opened his mouth as if he had suddenly been de- 
prived of his wind... A blessing before meals—of 
course ... In the Old World no orthodox Jew went 
to table without a blessing—his father never did, he 
never did ... He knew the blessing before meals— 
in Hebrew, but Mr. Allen was a Christian... A 
blessing 

What was the Christian blessing like? Samuel was 
half asking, half wondering. | 

“Why,” Jessie spoke up more firmly, “Horace and 
Aunt Alvina think it would be best—that is, nicest if 
you just called on Mr. Allen for the blessing .. .” 

“Call on Mr. Allen for the blessing?” Samuel 
moistened his lips. He felt like a child who is con- 
fronted with a lie he had told. 

“Why yes,” Jessie’s voice was almost cheerful now; 
she was over the hardest part of the road. “Just call 
on him for the blessing.” 

Samuel was gazing far away. Jessie waited. 

‘Just how do I do this,—what am I to say to Mr. 
Allen?” 





THE Bic CHURCH 229 


Samuel tried to smile. He was, however, aware 
that it was a ludicrous situation and that he was play- 
ing a sorry part in it. His features had become dis- 
torted with a grimace. | 

What did one say? Jessie was not sure for an in- 
stant what it was Samuel should say to Mr. Allen. A 
distant memory suddenly came to her aid. 

“Why,” she said, “when we are all seated at the 
table, just say: ‘Mr. Allen, will you ask the blessing?’ 
That’s all.” 

As a matter of fact the thing was simple. Mr. 
Allen’s blessing was brief, scarcely more than a dozen 
words. All of them listened to it with heads slightly 
inclined forward. Before Samuel realized it, it was 
over and they were eating and chatting pleasantly, 
very pleasantly. 

After dinner they adjourned to the parlor. Aunt 
Alvina was in excellent spirits. Mr. Allen, Horace and 
Samuel were talking about the growth of the city. 
Lincoln was expanding faster than any other com- 
munity in the state. Henry Allen told of his visits 
to Lincoln when the place was less than a third of 
its present size. 

Samuel thought of his own coming to Lincoln and 
about his first job with Emmerich’s. But he swal- 
lowed his thoughts. He would better not speak about 
these things. It might arouse too many questions, 
call for too many explanations. 

Jessie was called out. Little Sarah was up and it 
was her feeding time. Aunt Alvina followed her some 


230 Gov oF MIGHT 


minutes later. The afternoon was wearing on. Hor- 
ace excused himself. He would run over and make 
sure about trains. 

Mr. Allen and Samuel were puffing away at their 
black cigars and talking business, or rather Mr. Allen 
was talking business. They were getting on in years, 
he and Mrs. Allen, he was saying, and they had for 
some time been thinking of leaving Ridlon for a 
bigger place, a city. Their married children were all 
living elsewhere, and now that Gertrude and Horace 
were to settle in Lincoln, the city might not be a bad 
place for them to come to live in. , 

Mr. Allen was gazing out of the window as if trying 
to make sure of something. Some distance down the 
street was a church that was newly finished. He com- 
mented on it and on the fact that there were some 
really fine churches in Lincoln. Horace had taken 
him to one that morning. It was a beautiful edifice 
and the service was gratifying indeed. The sermon 
had been excellent. 

As Mr. Allen went off into a reverie about the ser- 
vice, Samuel suddenly found himself gripped by an 
old, old pain... He knew what the next, inevitable 
question would be... He saw it coming... It 
would be about his faith . . . And he would not shift 
or shuffle—it was the one thing he would not evade nor 
disguise... 

The question came the next time Mr. Allen opened 
his mouth to speak. He had resumed his ramblings 
about religion and, in the manner of one confident 


THE Bic CHURCH 231 


of an affirmative and satisfying reply, he asked what 
church Mr. Waterman attended. 

Samuel wavered an instant. The question was di- 
rect and his answer would be fully as direct and 
definite. But he was looking for a way—the most 
concordant manner—of giving that answer. There 
was a strong attachment between Jessie and her 
brother, and Horace and Mr. Allen would soon be 
of one family. He would avoid any straining of rela- 
tions with Mr. Allen—if it could possibly be done. . . 

With a wave of his hand, as if to include all nature, 
Samuel said something about attending the Big Church. 

It was unfortunate. Mr. Allen knew a follower of 
Robert Ingersoll in Ridlon who always spoke of at- 
tending the big church. It was in fact from another 
follower of Robert Ingersoll in Lincoln that Samuel 
first heard the phrase. 

After some hesitation Mr. Allen came back to it. 
He was not ordinarily inquisitive about other people’s 
religious views, but in this case the thing seemed war- 
ranted and he persisted: What church had Mr. Water- 
man been brought up in? 

The vague smile disappeared from Samuel’s face. 
He was born and reared in the Hebrew faith, he 
said, 

“T am a Hebrew,” he declared, a grave dignity com- 
ing into his voice and manner. He was thinking of 
the phrase in the original Hebrew and recalling the 
place in the Bible whence it came. It was in the Book 
of Jonah. That was what the prophet in his great 


232 Gop oF MIGHT 


distress had answered the mariners: Jvrz onoikhi— 
I ama Hebrew... 

“Oh,” Mr. Allen exclaimed. 

Waterman’s explanation had put the entire mat- 
ter in a different light. He was not an atheist. That 
was a distinct relief to Mr. Allen. As for Samuel’s 
being a Hebrew, it was an unexpected situation and 
Mr. Allen was totally unprepared for it. 

They had reached the end of their cigars and 
Samuel passed the box around once more, which was 
very convenient for both of them. Mr. Allen lighted 
a new cigar and was absorbed in the study of its 
quality. He was not selling quite as good a cigar in 
his own store at Ridlon—there was no demand for it. 
They were starting to talk store again when Horace 
came in with Miss Dey. Jessie followed some moments 
later. She brought little Grant with her. The child 
had had his afternoon nap and seemed quite pleased 
with the world. He smiled at his father and asked 
to be taken. 

For some time the child occupied the center of the 
stage, then Horace reminded them that it was nearly 
five. They had a walk to the hotel yet and Mr. Allen 
rose. 

Miss Dey went for his clothes and they all followed 
him into the hall. The parting was friendly. 


II. 


In the evening, after the children had been put to 
bed, Samuel went up into the nursery and gazed at 


THE Bic CHURCH 233 


their sleeping faces. The contrast between them 
had been engaging him ever since the birth of the 
little girl. 

Little Grant’s blond head and chubby face always 
set him wondering. He wondered how he happened to 
have such a son. Jessie claimed that the child looked 
every bit like her father. Aunt Alvina saw in little 
Grant the veritable image of Horace. So did Horace 
himself and affected great partiality for the young- 
ster ... Samuel, however, when he came up the 
walk to his house at noon or in the evening and saw 
little Grant playing in the yard, never could overcome 
a momentary sensation that the child belonged in the 
next house or the one after that and had strayed into 
his yard by accident ... Little Grant combined in 
his temper and make-up all the traits of the country 
and of the people about him, but seemed to have noth- 
ing of him, of his father .. . 

“Here I am,” the little round face and stub nose 
seemed to say, “this is my world and I will take no 
nonsense from anyone.” 

His infant daughter aroused in him altogether dif- 
ferent feelings. There was something about the tiny 
face that stirred slumbering memories and set him 
dreaming. It was as if with the coming of the child 
a part of his old self, which he thought dead, returned 
0 eae 

When baby Sarah opened her eyes and Samuel 
gazed into them he invariably recalled the river Nie- 
men. His home would rise vividly before him, the 


234 Gop oF MIcuHT 


joys and sorrows of his childhood ... Melodies his 
mother sang to him when he was a youngster came 
back and seemed to float in the air. He never could 
bring himself to sing these old songs in a foreign 
tongue to little Grant, but baby Sarah would listen 
to them attentively, as if his sad crooning were not 
altogether strange to her. 

One morning as he was holding the child in his 
arms, he caught himself softly chanting a part of the 
prayer for the Day of Atonement. Little Sarah was 
listening to the Hebrew words and to the melody of 
more than two thousand years, and it seemed to him 
that there was something knowing, familiar in her 
BYES TION 


Jessie found him in the dimly lighted room standing 
beside the sleeping infant, as if in a trance. She came 
up beside him. 

There was a mellow fragrance about her person. 
She had grown more luxuriant with the two childbirths, 
and there was an added softness in her features. The 
contemplation in her eyes had grown deeper, more 
profound, as if her husband and children were giving 
her something to think about. 

As always, Jessie’s nearness stirred Samuel to ten- 
derness. He put his arm about her shoulders and she 
swayed toward him, her body resting against his side. 

“T am glad it’s over,” she said, as she pushed back 
his hair and was gazing at the sharp curves of his 
temples. 


THE Bic CHURCH 235 


“Over?” Samuel asked. He was not clear what she 
had reference to. 

“{ mean the dinner to Mr. Allen—the whole af- 
fair,” Jessie explained. 

Samuel regarded his wife thoughtfully. It wasn’t 
over ... Nothing was over... The conversation 
with Mr. Allen that afternoon was not the end, but 
rather a beginning . .. He would hear from it... 
There would come in its wake unpleasantness, pain... 

He was about to tell all this and more to Jessie, but 
swallowed the impulse . . . Speech had of late some- 
how lost the capacity to clear things up... On the 
contrary it seemed to be involving him more and 
more every time, complicating matters for him... 
He said nothing . . 

In June Horace and Gertrude were married ... 


III. 


Gertrude had brought a letter from her home church 
in Ridlon. She presented it in Lincoln when she and 
Horace had returned from their honeymoon, and at a 
bound found herself in the vortex of the activities 
of her church. 

Her talent as a pianist was quickly recognized. She 
was playing for the choir and with the church quar- 
tet. She was made a member of the committee on 
church charities and, though not teaching, she was 
enrolled on the Sunday school staff for what assistance 
she could give in the training of the youngsters for 
Children’s Day and other entertainments. 


236 Gop oF MIGHT 


Horace, who had never had any religious affiliations 
or preferences, as a matter of course joined his wife’s 
church. They were also members of the Epworth 
League,.and before the end of two months Horace had 
been made secretary-treasurer of the organization. 
The Methodist Church was just then entering on a 
nation-wide campaign for funds, with which to sup- 
port its foreign missions. Gertrude threw herself 
heart and soul into the work and Horace, because of 
his familiarity with finance, served as the local treas- 
urer of the fund all through the campaign. 

Gertrude, who had been one of the most popular 
girls in Ridlon, was fast acquiring a wide circle of 
acquaintances in Lincoln. At church socials or sup- 
pers people always flocked around her, glad to note 
and be noted. With such a charming wife Horace 
should go far, according to the consensus of opinion. 

There was no question but that Gertrude was mak- 
ing a splendid wife for Horace. Aunt Alvina, Jessie, 
Samuel—all agreed on that. Her accomplishments no 
doubt would aid him in his career ... If only her 
friendships were not in every case the outgrowth of 
her church activities and church affiliations ... 

Not that Gertrude’s devotion to her church work 
was that of the spiritual zealot. At bottom it was 
more social than religious ... Only—if she spoke 
less of it at the Waterman home... As it was, a \ 
feeling of uneasiness pervaded Jessie and even Aunt 
Alvina every time Horace and Gertrude came to din- 
ner, a feeling such as one has when starting out on 


THE Bic CHURCH AY 


a picnic with a threatening sky overhead ... Sam- 
uel frequently rose from the table on such occasions 
with a troubled air... 

Horace was too absorbed in his young bride to 
notice the painful silences with which Gertrude’s en- 
thusiastic recounting of her church plans and pro- 
grams was received—or perhaps he was getting 
used to it. Jessie several times thought of mentioning 
the matter to her brother. At the last moment, how- 
ever, she would invariably shrink from such a 
course. . . | 

The question of her husband’s religion was becom- 
ing a susceptible spot with Jessie... She never 
dreamed that Samuel’s want of church affiliations 
could enter so vitally into their existence... To 
speak to Horace and have him, in turn, speak of the 
matter to his wife, would but serve to emphasize the 
differences between Samuel and themselves, to draw 
Gertrude’s attention to them... Jessie preferred 
that her sister-in-law absorb these things herself .. . 
Aunt Alvina reached a similar conclusion .. . 

As for Samuel, his point of view, in its essentials, 
was not different from that of his wife and Aunt 
Alvina. It would serve him poorly to force an issue 
between himself and Jessie’s family ... 


IV. 


Despite his promising start at the bank, despite, 
too, his wife’s social talents, which were making him 
many friends, Horace was not moved up in his posi- 


238 Gov oF MIGHT 


tion as fast as was expected. They had no child. 
Winter came, the third since Horace and Gertrude 
were married. 

There was scarcely an evening now when Horace 
did not come up to play with his sister’s children, par- 
ticularly with little Grant, who, as he grew older, was 
beginning to show a close resemblance to his uncle .. . 
Even on such nights. when he accompanied Gertrude 
to a church musicale or some other affair, Horace 
would manage to snatch a few minutes for the 
youngster. 

Horace had an inexhaustible fund of stories about 
Indians and cowboys, about deeds of daring and of 
danger, which his father, the schoolmaster, had either 
read or told him as a child. These stories little Grant 
was now devouring eagerly. Horace had bought his 
nephew an Indian suit and a feathered headgear. He 
was bringing him books with pictures of Indian tepees 
and so close was the bond between the child and 
Horace becoming in consequence that there were times 
when little Grant seemed to waver in his affections 
between his father and his uncle .. . 

Now and then Samuel thought of this... 

It seemed to him that there was something he 
should do in the matter . . . Horace was taking from 
the child’s affections something that should be his, 
Samuel’s, his alone. He should take action—action 
to tie his little son closer to himself. They were not 
as near, little Grant and himself, as he and his father 
had been ... He must take action... Yes... 


THE Bic CHURCH 239, 


But the more Samuel brooded over this, the more 
his own shortcomings as a father—a father to an 
American son—came into relief ... Here, as else- 
where, his foreign birth and ghetto bringing up were 
putting him at a disadvantage ... The two, uncle 
and nephew, had their American childhood in com- 
mon: Horace only recently grown out of it, while 
Grant was just growing into it... In later years it 
might be different ... Later he and his grown son 
might find common ground to stand on... In the 
meantime—perhaps Jessie’s brother, with his Indian 
stories and his cowboy thrills, was the better equipped 
companion of the two for little Grant . . . Perhaps 
Horace was merely supplementing to little Grant the 
things which he, Samuel, could not give hisson .. . 


Ve 


One evening, in March, Horace suggested that Grant 
was now old enough to go to Sunday school. Ger- 
trude mentioned that she knew Mr. Bellamy, the Sun- 
day school superintendent of their church, very well. 
Neither Aunt Alvina nor Jessie spoke up. Samuel was 
about to speak, but before he framed his thoughts, 
Horace began to elaborate: 

Whatever church Grant *might choose ultimately, 
when he was a man, it could not be amiss if he started 
out by being regular in such matters. 

As he said this Horace was conscious that he was 
repeating a phrase that his father-in-law, Henry Allen, 
had used the last time he visited them . . . Samuel, 


240 Gop oF MIGHT 


too, recognized it as something Henry Allen had said. 
So did Jessie and Aunt Alvina. It was so unlike Hor- 
ace to put things that way... 

Grant started Sunday school immediately after Eas- 
ter. Neither Jessie nor Aunt Alvina went to church 
and the child was going and coming with Uncle Hor- 
ace and Aunt Gertrude... 

It was very strange... 


CHAPTER XX. 
FATHER OF MERCIES! 
I. 


HE day is done . . . The gates of heaven are 
CLOSING cpm CLOSING 3 20u2? ) 

Samuel woke in a panic. He had been dreaming. 
... He sat up. Jessie was asleep beside him and he 
heard her measured, even breathing. He left the bed, 
got into his bathrobe without disturbing her sleep, 
and stepped over to the window. He raised the shade 
and a flood of cool night air smote his face and chest. 
He drew the robe closer about him and looked out. . . 
It was autumn ... He had read in the paper just 
before retiring that the following evening the Day of 
Atonement would be ushered in . . . Jews the world 
over would fast and pray from sunset till nightfall of 
the next day... 

The street was still. It was one o’clock in the morn- 
ing. In the sky the stars were coldly twinkling. He 
could not see the moon, but its light lay upon the tree 
tops and upon the roofs of the houses across the 
WAM ees 

“The gates of heaven are closing . . . The day is 


done < ,.°.” 
241 


242 Gop oF MicHT 


There was a strange pounding in his temples and a 
gnawing sensation about his heart ...A space of 
thirty-odd years rolled off his shoulders as if by a 
magic hand, and he was a child again—a very small 
boy ... It was the Day of Atonement—the first Day 
of Atonement he had any memory of—and he was 
in the synagogue beside his father. (Peace to his 
memory) ... The day was drawing to a close. The 
sun was Setting and its golden rays streamed in weakly 
through the stained glass windows... 

The men in prayer shawls were swaying back and 
forth in their seats. They had been in the synagogue 
since daybreak ... Throughout the morning and 
until the midafternoon they prayed loud and fervently. 
At times their voices became vociferous. In the late 
afternoon the service had become more moderate, as if 
in response to the waning strength of the people who 
were limp with hunger . . . It consisted chiefly of 
silent prayer and meditation .. . 

Then, as the ball of fire in the west began to de- 
scend toward the horizon, something unexpected hap- 
pened. Both the service and the people had become 
as if galvanized. Everyone in the synagogue assumed 
a standing posture and with eyes lifted skyward a cry 
went up from a thousand throats: a cry of fervent, 
passionate entreaty, like people pleading for their life. 
. . . Hands were lifted, bodies trembled, faces were 
distorted with agony... 

He, little Samuel, had turned white and looked up 
to his father in alarm. 


FATHER OF MERCIES! 243 


David, his face very pale from the prolonged fast, 
answered the child’s questioning gaze . . . It was no 
ordinary answer . . . His father was paraphrasing the 
text of the prayer from the sacred Hebrew into their 
everyday tongue... 

It was the “closing” prayer, David half spoke, half 
chanted. The congregation was making a last appeal. 
. . . Lhey were pleading for the whole of Israel... 
They were crying: ‘“The day is done, the gates of 
heaven are closing ... Father of Mercies, hear 
IS eit | 
The magic hand had disappeared . . . The years 
came back... 

Samuel breathed deeply of the cool night air... 
Yes, it was fall... 

He pulled down the shade and went back tobed ... 


ba 


The panicky feeling with which Samuel woke dur- 
ing the night left him fleetingly at breakfast: Jes- 
sie was there radiating a serene calm. But it came 
back later in the day, and it recurred to him again 
and again in the weeks and months that followed. 

Frequently, toward evening, when the sun had set 
and the long, wintry night was descending upon the 
town, a sensation as of closing would come over him. 
. . . Gates were closing—not of heaven, but of the 
earth . . . It seemed to him that he had been cast off, 
the whole world had cast him off... 

Thanksgiving Day came and went. Christmas and 


244 Gop oF MIGHT 


the New Year were in the atmosphere. People were 
drawing together, each to his kind... 

There were holiday doings at his home, but he was 
not consulted with regard to them. He was informed 
of events only after they had been determined on. 
There was apparently nothing significant in this. He 
was such a busy man, particularly during the holiday 
season, that it seemed a kindness not to disturb him 
with trifling, domestic details . . . It was a plausible 
enough view and Samuel tried to take it whole... 

But there were other disturbing signs. 

The people of his town were coming to have certain 
views regarding him which, while they had no basis 
in fact, were given plausibility, Samuel had to admit, 
by the undercurrent of isolation that was running 
through his life . . . They conceded his honesty—all 
did that . . . He was scrupulous and paid his help 
well. They granted his ability, his success... 

But business, they seemed to think, was the end 
of his horizon—he saw no further than money... 
Even those who stood closest to him were not above 
thinking him thus . . . He had never shown any other 
side of himself to them. As far as they were able 
to see he had only business, money interests in com- 
mon with them—nothing else... 

Occasionally the word seine was coupled with an- 
other word—Jew ... 

Two or three of the leading merchants in town, 
who had formerly been more or less clubby with him, 
had of late grown distant... 


FATHER OF MERCIES! 245 


People did not seem to know what his intentions 
had been and there was no way to explain him- 
self .. . Even at home it was hard to explain... 
With the exception of Jessie, his inability to cut the 
thread which united him with his past was coming 
to be looked upon as a perverse obstinacy . . . Ger- 
man Lutherans became Congregationalists and Meth- 
odists; other immigrants knew how to harmonize their 
Old World religious views with those prevalent in the 
New. Why not he? 

But hardest of all it was to explain things to him- 
self ... Yes, to himself . . . His life had become a 
web of contradictions .. . 


Il, 


Winter passed and spring came. The sun’s depart- 
ure was more lingering and in the late afternoon his 
office would now fill with mellow, golden light... 

Frequently on such afternoons Samuel thought of 
Hisitather?.,.. 

David was dead; he died in the Old World—died in 


peace ... His son-in-law, the rabbi, had delivered 
the burial discourse, the Hesped, before the open 
grave ... The entire community had turned out to 


his father’s funeral, so his sister had written .. . 

His father was dead and it was too late to offer a 
due apology, or to pay him a deserved tribute .. . 
There was no essential difference between them, 
though he, Samuel, had lived all these years in the 
belief that there was ... They had both faced the 


246 Gov oF MIGHT 


same problem—he and his father . . . All of David’s 
existence turned about the question of his race... 
All of his, Samuel’s, existence, was revolving about the 
same question .. . As for the solution of the ques- 
tion—was he any nearer to a solution than his father 
had been? ... Was he? 

An intense abstraction had settled upon him... 


CHAPTER XXI. 
TIES OF BLOOD. 
I. 


. . . He was not the only one who had ventured out 
on this new course ... Other Jews had intermar- 
ried: in the middle west and elsewhere in America .. . 
He knew the names of three or four such Jews in his 
own state . . . They had children . . . Others of his 
race were united to their Christian surroundings, with 
the Christian people about them, by ties of love, by 
ties of blood... 

Had they arranged their lives more successfully and 
with greater dignity than he had arranged his? Were 
there no “problems” in their case? ... Were they 
hanpyeriva:) 

It would perhaps clear things for him, might even 
give his whole life a new turn, if he were to have a 
talk with one of these Jews, a heart to heart talk ... 
He was thinking of a possible means of approach 
when a man belonging to the class of these others 
turned up in his very office, came to his desk. 

He was the new salesman for a Chicago wholesale 
house with which Waterman was dealing. Stone was 
his name. 

247 


248 Gop oF MIGHT 


Theodore B. Stone—Ted Stone to the profession— 
was a man of forty-seven or forty-eight. He was tall, 
broad and muscular, an athletic figure. His face was 
smooth shaven and he was fastidious about his dress. 
His manner was one of brimming cheerfulness .. . 

Ted Stone’s appearance, speech, the graying hair 
about his temples, gave no indication of his lineage 
and it would never have occurred to Samuel to specu- 
late about the salesman’s race or ancestry. After the 
second or third visit, however, Stone casually made 
mention of the fact that he was a Hebrew and that 
he had surmised Mr. Waterman to be of the same 
origin. In equally offhand manner the salesman, sev- 
eral months later, mentioned his family, the fact that 
it was Christian, and that he understood Mr. Water- 
man to be in a similar position .. . 

There was an odd sort of look in Stone’s eyes 
when he mentioned their family affiliations, as if he 
and Waterman were both sharing a secret between 
them, a secret about which much could be said had 
either of them cared to enter into the matter more 
extendedly, instead of barely mentioning it... 

Thereafter Waterman’s relations with Stone were 
not unlike those of two alumni, who, though years 
apart, had graduated from the same school, shared the 
same loyalties and followed one code... 

They had become friends. The salesman “made” 
Lincoln every six weeks and Samuel now frequently 
awaited his coming. 

Stone was born in America. His father before him 


TIES oF BLOOD 249 


had come from Amsterdam and Stone knew nothing 
about the Russian ghetto in which Samuel’s earliest 
memories were rooted. But whenever the salesman 
reverted to their race, or threw a Hebrew word 
into the conversation, a word which had common 
meaning to both of them, Waterman could not escape 
a feeling that he and the salesman had one time be- 
longed to the same household... 

When they were alone in Samuel’s office, facing each 
other across the blue-gray wall of smoke from their 
cigars, Stone would lay aside the mask of bubbling 
lightness and feigned enthusiasm over nothings—the 
salesman’s accessories—and they would talk seriously 
of serious things... 

In such moments Stone’s face and eyes cried out 
his race. There was in them the intangible something 
that had marked the Jew in all ages, in every land, 
the dream, the cry that had marked him since the 
beginning of time . 


II. 


It was a sultry afternoon in August . . . The har- 
vest season was at its height and business was very 
nearly at a standstill. Theodore Stone was sitting in 
Waterman’s office. The salesman had missed the three- 
fifteen express to Chicago and was now waiting for 
the six-thirty train which would bring him home past 
midnight. 

They were talking of the city—big cities in gen- 
etal’ 


250 Gop oF MIGHT 


For some time now the thought of a big city was 
lurking in the back of Samuel’s head. Chicago—and 
even New York . . . On occasions these words welled 
up in his mind as if in answer to the twists and per- 
plexities of his life . . . If he would take Jessie and 
the children and go to a large city, go where no one 
knew them, their life might, perhaps, still be turned 
into new channels.... The children were young 
enough to grow into a new environment . . . Grant 
would forget Uncle Horace and Lincoln. As for little 
Sarah, there would be no trouble about her at all: 
she was /is to the very roots... 

Yes, a big city... 

Instead, however, of going on with plans for such 
a shifting of foundations, of prying his family loose 
from its present moorings, he had embarked upon a 
course that was the exact opposite to all such plans 
and dreams. He was binding himself closer to Lin- 
coln—forever perhaps... 

He had bought one of the best corners on the Square 
and was building. Architects and contractors had 
been at work for some time on a four story, up-to-date 
structure as the future home of the Waterman de- 
partment store. 

Why had he done this? .. . 

Samuel suddenly found himself speaking of his fam- 
ily—speaking in big gulps . . . He was taking Stone 
into his confidence as if they had been lifelong inti- 
mates . . . He described his past: The stern ortho- 
doxy of his ghetto bringing up, the Old World humilia- 


a i a a 


TIES OF BLOOD 251 


tions, persecutions .. . Then came America: The 
vision of equality and justice, the vast tolerance ... 
There were no heights to which his dreams would not 
ascend . . . He had been dreaming of a new millen- 
nium for his race, for humanity . . . America had ap- 
peared to him as a new Sinai yielding new tablets to 
guide the conscience of mankind . . . America had 
become his faith, his religion . 

But the dream had broken down somewhere... 
The process of further growing together with his sur- 
roundings, of becoming one with the town, with the 
people of the town, had become impossible for him. 
. . . This was reacting disastrously on his family, on 
Jessie. It was tending to make a lonely person out 
of his wife, as lonely as himself... 

Stone was listening attentively, but without a 
shadow of surprise, as if what Waterman was telling 
him was something that was not at all unfamiliar .. . 
An ironic half-smile played about his mouth, a smile 
aimed at no one and at nothing in particular .. . 

“Why don’t you join a church—your wife’s 
church?” Stone said wearily when Waterman had fin- 
ished. 

“Join—a—church?r” Samuel had scarcely looked 
for such a suggestion. 

“Yes, why not make a clean job of it?” Stone con- 
tinued in the same vein. ‘‘You have married into the 
Christian world and you might as well become one 
of it—a Christian .. .” 

The salesman was not making sport of him. Stone’s 


252 Gop oF MIGHT 


face was too grimly earnest for that. Samuel did not 
wish to hurt or offend the older man. 

“But, you—you don’t seem to have made a clean 
job of it—yourself,’ his voice was unsteady. “Vou 
haven’t become a Christian . . .” 

“No,” Stone said quietly, “and that is why I am 
in a position to advise you. I speak from experi- 
ence—” 

Stone moved forward, closer toward Samuel. His 
face was bloodless. He lighted a fresh cigar and, 
casting a look at the door to make sure that no one 
could overhear him, he continued with tempered vehe- 
mence: 

“Nobody bothers about your belief or unbelief—it 
is conformity that people demand . . . If I had known 
eighteen or even fifteen years back, when my children 
were still small, what I know today, I would have gone 
where nobody knew me and would have buried my 


Jewish origin as deep as I could... Then it was 


still time. Then I could still lose myself to the Chris- 
tian world . . . I would conform—Oh, I would con- 
form ... Or else— Else I would have come out with 
my race openly and aggressively .. . Stuck to it. 
. . . [ would have made my wife and children Jews 
at any cost—at all cost . . . There is nothing more 
humiliating than my position today . . . You will be 
in the exact position fifteen years hence . . . Look—” 

Stone produced and passed over a small photograph. 
It was of his wife and two daughters. The girls 
looked about eighteen and twenty years respectively — 





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if 
7 
5, 
4 


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ee a en 


Se ee 


~~ ie 


> 7. 


<a ee 


~ 


TIES OF BLOOD 253 


young ladies . . . Mrs. Stone seemed much too young 
to be the mother of such grown up daughters. All 
three were astoundingly beautiful. 

“T am very fond of my family,” Stone said, putting 
the picture back into his pocket, “and yet you see me, 
at my age—traveling . . . Am I on the road because 
I haven’t the brains to build up a business of my own 
in Chicago? Never! I am traveling because home 
means a thousand little pin pricks to me, and equally 
as many little tragedies to my children, my family. 
I am a devoted father and my children adore me’... . 
But they can never quite forget my ‘indiscretion’ .. . 
I am a Jew—lI have remained a Jew . . . My daugh- 
ters can never forgive me that . . . There is no malice 
in it . . . But the Jew in their circle—and that circle 
includes the whole of Christendom—is not popular, 
and they feel that I had no right to cast a shadow 
over their status in the world ...I should have 
merged my religion with theirs—if that was what the 
world called for . . . If their mother cared not, or 
would not exact this from me at the time of our mar- 
riage, I should, they feel, have done this after their 
birth, for their sake .. .” 

Stone passed his hand over his face as if the little 
speech had cost him great effort, and went on: 

“And from their point of view they are right. There 
are a thousand inconveniences. JI am home in the eve- 
ning. Their friends come in. Young men will have 
their jests. Someone springs a joke about—a Jew. 
We all laugh—heartily . . . Suddenly there is a self- 


254 Gov oF MIGHT 


consciousness . . . Someone had bethought himself, 
had recalled something . . . The house he was in, was 
not—well—not exactly, not exclusively Christian ... 
There is a breath of apology in the air, a feeling of 
restraint, estrangement ... The evening has been 
ruined i 

Samuel was barely listening. He was studying 
Stone’s face. It was grave now with the gravity which 
he, Samuel, had known in his father, in his uncle, in 
other Jews ... The pain in it was not acute and 
passing. It was, on the contrary, a deep, lasting sor- 
row, such as death might leave; an irreparable loss, 
which wealth can’t restore, nor success mitigate .. . 

Samuel had completely regained his self-possession. 

“T should think,” he said “in a city, in a big city, 
things would not come to such a clash, the difference 
wouldn’t be noticed so.” 

“Big or small,” Stone replied, ‘it is the same thing. 
A person moves in a certain circle. You either con- 
form to the customs and prejudices of that circle, or 
you don’t. If you conform you are in it; if you don’t, 
you are out of it.” 

“Have—you tried to raise your children to be— 
just people?”? Samuel hesitated, as if knowing before- 
hand what the answer was going to be. 

“Vou are trying—are you succeeding?” Stone smiled 
sadly. “I knew some Germans in Chicago once, who 
tried to raise their children as free thinkers . . . Fail- 
ure—the whole thing was a failure . . . If you area 
Christian you are a Christian, whether you profess 


a 


TIES OF BLOOD 255 


your religion or not. And if you are a Jew, no palli- 
atives, such as free thought, idealism or Spinozism, 
(which was what my father taught me to profess) 
will help you—you are a Jew .. . Your children will 
be either Christians or Jews—there is no half way .. . 
The world will have us only on its own terms and the 
terms, which a dominant race, or class, or religion 
imposes, are always the same—surrender . . . Chris- 
tian and Jew will fuse and become one only when the 
Jew will be willing to efface himself, to extinguish his 
identity, to kill the Jew in him—not otherwise... . 
The millennium for Jew and Christian of which you 
spoke is not here and you and I, and a hundred or a 
thousand others in our position were either visionaries 
—or unthinking .. .” 

Silence fell... 

From the store there came a stirring as of renewed 
activity. The girls were straightening out the counters 
for the next day . . . Stone looked at his watch. It 
was time to go to his hotel to make ready for the 
train. 


CHAPTER XXII. 
HALF A LIFE. 
1y 


ESSIE, too, had had a visitor that afternoon. It 

was her girlhood friend, Ruby Holm. 

Ruby burst in on Jessie unannounced, fell upon her 
bosom and wept as if her heart would break . . . Her 
friend’s conduct was no surprise to Jessie. 

An accident had happened to Ruby’s husband. 
George, who had been the foreman for the gas com- 
pany in an up-state town, had cut his hand with a 
wire and blood poisoning set in. The infection proved 
difficult to control and the doctor urged the amputa- 
tion of two fingers. Holm would not hear of losing 
two fingers off his right hand and insisted on going 
on with less radical treatment. At the end of six 
weeks he was removed to a hospital where it was 
found necessary to take off the whole of his right arm, 
if his life was to be saved. The arm was amputated 
at the shoulder ... 

It was the first time they met since the accident. 

Jessie attempted to console her friend. Ruby had 
much to be thankful for. She, Jessie, had heard of 


cases where blood poisoning had resulted in death. 
256 


HALF A LIFE 257 


“Yes, I suppose,” Ruby murmured, trying to stem 
her tears. 

It had been some time since the two had seen each 
other and Jessie was observing her friend. They were 
of an age. Ruby, in fact, might have been a trifle 
younger. But she looked the older of the two. Ruby, 
the laughing, vivacious, plump little Ruby, looked 
old. Her figure had lost its curves and shapeliness, 
her face was drawn. There was an economy of fabric, 
a second and even third rate quality, about her clothes. 

Jessie was conscious of the luxuriousness of her 
own attire and a feeling of contrition came over 
Herieg 

She was speaking to her friend softly and ever so 
casually ... If, by chance, Ruby was worried over 
financial matters, in consequence of the accident— 
this could be easily arranged ... Sam was making 
numerous changes at the store. He was building, ex- 
panding. There would be no trouble finding a suit- 
able position for George . . . Sam would, in fact, be 
glad to have George with him... 

Ruby waved aside her suggestion. 

The gas company had dealt fairly with George. 
They could not give him his former job back, of 
course. But other work was found for him and, 
though his new position was of lesser responsibility, 
his salary had not been cut... 

“Tt isn’t that,” Ruby broke out in a fresh paroxysm 
of sobbing, “it’s hisarm ...Imisshisarm.. . Life 
isn’t the same any more since the accident—it’s only 


258 Gop oF MIGHT 


half a life ... He can’t embrace me as he used 
Lovie). 
“T know,” Ruby was swallowing hard, “that I 
shouldn’t say it, I shouldn’t talk like this .. . George 
has been such a dear—always ... But since the ac- 
cident I feel as if he were only half a man. . . He, 
too, seems to feel it: His face is old and drawn and 
he is always quiet now, quiet and morose ... And 
you remember how jolly he used to be... .” 

Jessie remembered. They had had loads of fun 
with George when she and Ruby were girls together. 

Mrs. Holm would not remain for supper, though 
she had not seen Aunt Alvina, and the children, too, 
were away, playing. She had come for a day and there 
were a number of things she had to attend to yet. She 
left a little after four. 

They kissed and Jessie followed her friend with 
her eyes from behind the curtain, in the parlor, until 
Ruby’s spare frame turned the corner and disappeared 
from view ... Then Jessie stepped back from the 
window, ensconced herself in a deep plush chair at 
the far end of the room and wept... 

She wept for Ruby and George Holm. It was dis- 
mal to have life treat you in such fashion... By 
degrees, however, her own sorrow overwhelmed 
hen 

Half a life... 

It was as if Ruby had inadvertently drawn aside 
the curtain from her own drama . . . Half a life .. 
Was not that what ker life with Samuel was resolving 


HALF A LIFE 2590 


itself into? . .. Ruby Holm had framed in words 
that which had lain inarticulate in Jessie’s own 
thoughts ... 

Samuel had suffered no loss of limb and his em- 
braces were as ardent as ever. But, in a larger, ina 
tragically large sense, he, too, was armless . . . Sam- 
uel was not embracing life, the world about him, her 
world, their children’s world . . . He was, on the con- 
trary, perpetually at odds with it... 

It did not seem possible that their life could take 
the turn it had taken . . . Samuel was like the man 
in the Greek story who was rolling a stone up to the 
very summit only to see it roll down again... He 
was rolling up the stone of friendship with their towns- 
people six days in the week, only to find his labors 
undone by the seventh... 

Except for Horace and Gertrude scarcely anyone 
came to their house. Their intercourse with their 
townspeople had dwindled down to threadbare neces- 
sities, such as lodge meetings and fraternal events. 
. . . They had no intimates. Intimacy, real, sincere 
friendship, came with Sundays, with holidays—and 
with all that went with these days... But it was 
precisely on Sundays and holidays that Samuel’s in- 
terests and those of his townspeople ceased to run 
parallel ... 

The wreck and ruin of their social life had not been 
so noticeable while the children were small and there 
was the excuse of staying home for their sake. It was 
glaring now that this excuse would no longer hold .. . 


260 Gop oF MIGHT 


Jessie curled up closer in her seat and was making 
no effort to control the tears that were streaming down 
her cheeks ... 

Oh, if there were no holidays and no Sundays... 
If life were only a matter of nights and love... 


IT. 


For some time now Jessie had been aware that re- 
ligious differences were not the only thing that was 
separating Christian and Jew. Between them there 
was a kind of vendetta—a long standing feud that 
was repeatedly breaking out afresh, in one country 
or another ... 

The feud had been transplanted from the Old World 
into the New... It had been carried into their 
madstin)). 

There was a distinct cleavage between Christian and 
Jew in Lincoln. Jessie scarcely knew whence the thing 
came or how it began, but it was there: a line of de- 
markation that was continually becoming sharper and 
more pronounced. 

Two brothers, young men by the name of Mendel- 
son, had started a clothing store on the Square some 
years earlier. They were from Chicago, had appar- 
ently gone to American schools, and talked and acted 
no differently from the other store-keepers. Never- 
theless the Mendelsons were invariably spoken of as 
the “Jewish clothiers” and their store as the “Jewish 
store.” 


HALF A LIFE 261 


There were one or two other stores in town that 
were given the same classification . . . 

Then there were the Jewish pence and junkmen 
in Locust Field. 

Twenty-five or thirty Jewish families lived in the 
district below the railroad tracks. Most of these were 
refugees from the pogromed areas in Russia. Jessie 
recalled distinctly when the first of these homeless 
families had arrived. The papers made a great to-do 
about it. They gave pictures of the newcomers, an 
account of what they had suffered. There was wide- 
spread sympathy for them... 

How this sympathy had ‘turned sour” was one of 
the things that were puzzling Jessie. But “sour” it 
had turned—and that quickly . . . The Jews in Lin- 
coln were of recent origin, but the ill will against 
them already bore all the earmarks of an ancient 
hate.) .. 

The children of these aliens were harassed and 
heckled in the street, or at play. The fathers, in 
spite of their age, had become subjects for insult and 
derision by the town youths and boys who hung out 
on street corners . .. From individuals this hatred 
was extending to the mass . . . The immigrants, floun- 
dering about helplessly and often grotesquely in their 
new American surroundings, were acclaimed into a 
symbol for the entire race and the topic of the Jew 
had become a source of mirth and derision even to 
older and, presumably, more serious persons... 

Locust Field had become a jest and a byword. . . 


262 Gop oF MIGHT 


It was all so grossly unfair, so hideously indelicate, 
this dogging of children and discrimination and snarl- 
ing at older people . . . It was unlike anything she 
had ever known before in her city . . . She had never 
suspected her townspeople of such rudeness, their 
children of such malice ... 

For a long time she could not bring herself to speak 
to her husband about the matter. It was too painful, 
too humiliating . . . As for Samuel, he acted, for the 
most part, as if he were totally unaware of these 
things . . . There was no question in Jessie’s mind, 
however, but that Samuel knew only too well what 
was going on, knew perhaps more than she did—and 
suftereds!?/ 4. 

Once, after dinner, when she and Samuel were the 
only ones left at the table, Jessie suddenly spoke to 
him about his race, its treatment in Lincoln, the 
shame of it... She expected that he would break 
out in indignation at the things she was telling him, 
an indignation equal to her own, if not greater ... 

But her words produced a contrary effect. 

Samuel did not flare up. Instead a subduedness 
came over him, a vague timidity ... He kept on 
chewing the end of his cigar and gazing at Jessie with 
a singular questioning in his eyes . . . He was look- 
ing at her as if he were seeing her for the first time 
and was wondering where she belonged: with him— 
or with those who were against him... 


HALF A LIFE 263 


IIT. 


She had removed all traces of weeping . . . Never- 
theless, throughout the evening meal, Jessie contin- 
ually felt her husband’s gaze lingering on her ques- 
tioningly, as if Samuel sensed the tension underneath 
her calm exterior .. . 

After the warm day the evening was cool. Samuel 
stepped out on the veranda and seated himself on 
a chair, the afternoon paper unopened beside him . . 
Grant had gone out into the yard to play with some 
boys, but little Sarah followed her father furtively. 
It was a habit with the child to approach her parent 
in this manner, as if her visits to him were a secret 
joy which must be stolen . . . On gaining Samuel’s 
knee the child stood up on it and flung her arms 
about his neck ... 

She would soon start school. Her features were 
delicately cut and were permeated with a glowing sen- 
sitiveness . . . There was a coyness about her that 
seemed to hark back to unknown places and distant 
times’ is.) 

Samuel was drinking in his child’s breath . . . The 
magnetism of her little body, planted against his 
breast, was running through him like a balm after the 
many bruises which the conversation with Stone had 
left that afternoon ... 

Jessie found father and daughter clasped in a silent 
embrace... 


CHAPTER XXIII. 
GOD OF MIGHT. 
in 


REIGHT cars, three rows deep, stuffed to the brim 
with products of the soil for the distant cities. 
Cars, heavily laden with farm implements from these 
cities on their way to be far flung among the agricul- 
tural population of a half a dozen states. Tobacco 
warehouses, grain elevators, machine shops. On the 
outskirts, new homes, schools, churches: paved streets 
where a short time before were fields and pastures .. . 
For some time past, Lincoln had attained what it . 
had long striven for—a population of forty thousand. 
Three railroads were running through the city and it 
had become the artery through which was coursing 
the business life of the country for hundreds of miles 
to north and west of it. 

As the train—the morning express from the West— 
was zig-zagging its way through the city, Samuel gazed 
about him with tense heedfulness. They were known 
and familiar close-ups, but that morning each and 
every one of these sights and objects had taken on a 


special significance. He was recalling another occa- 
264 


Gop or Micut 265 


sion, when he was going from Lincoln in not a dis- 
similar spirit and with the same objective: to try to 
settle in Chicago. 

Long, long ago... 

He had been in America only a year then and he 
was lonely . . . His soul had found no haven in his 
new surroundings and he was going back to his uncle, 
to Chicago... 

If he had stayed in Chicago then . . . If he had 
Stayed? ... 

He was speculating in his mind what might have 
happened if he had remained in Chicago after his 
year with Emmerich’s in North Lincoln . . . His life 
would, no doubt, have taken another turn... An 
entirely different turn . . . In the first place he and 
Jessie would never have met ... He was trying to 
construct a picture of his life without Jessie—all these 
years without her . . . Then the children: they would 
not be his . . . Grant, little Sarah . . . Little Sarah 
—not his... 

He was thinking of his uncle again—trecalling .. . 

How vivid long forgotten incidents of his childhood, 
of the pale, had become in recent months: The town 
of his birth and the River Niemen . . . The Greek 
Orthodox church with its green roof and gold crosses 
and cupolas .. . The peasants ... 

One incident of his childhood in particular kept 
recurring to his memory. It was in connection with 
the peasants: with the fear they cast upon him, par- 
ticularly during their chief holidays—Christmas and 


266 Gop oF MIcHT 


Easter—when they drank to excess, were boisterous, 
and threatened the Jews... 

Once during such a holiday he, Samuel, had confided 
to his uncle that he had a feeling as if he were 
living in a cage, in a prison: he was suffocating, 
chained. Uncle Jacob had listened to him in silence 
and then replied that this feeling of being a prisoner 
was something known to every Jew and that he, Sam- 
uel, too must become accustomed to it... 

In America both he and his uncle had lost that 
feeling . . . They thought they had shaken it off for- 
ever—along with the dust of the Old Word... 

They had thought... 

The image of his uncle vanished and in its place 
was Theodore Stone. 

The salesman was smiling his vague, ironic smile. 
. . . Stone was right about many things, Samuel was 
thinking, but he could not be right in what he said 
about Chicago ... Size, population, must make a 


difference . . . A city of three millions . . . It should 
be possible for him to settle there with his family and 
start life on a new, on a different basis . . . It should 


be possible .. . It should... 

“Second call for lunch!” 

He was even more positive about it after lunch .. . 
Yes, Stone was wrong . . . There was no place for a 
man in his, Samuel’s, position like a big city... 
They would leave Lincoln; they would move to Chi- 
cago . . . He began making plans where they would 
live, what he would do... 


Gop or MIGHT 267 


His thoughts were slower now . . . Much slower. 


It was late in the afternoon. The sky had become 
overcast and the sun was withdrawn... The har- 
vested fields, the trees, whose leaves were beginning 
to turn yellow, the entire panorama about him, had, 
almost instantaneously, assumed an autumnal tint... 

Did he intend to move his family to Chicago at 
once, this fall? If he did, he should have talked the 
matter over with Jessie till now . . . She should have 
known already of his plans . . . She thought his trip 
to Chicago was, as usual, on business... | 

Familiar billboards came into view. Chicago hotels 
and department stores were vying for attention... 
The train would get there in an hour . . . He must 
arrange his plans into some sort of sequence ... He 
must fix his thoughts on— 

They were fixed, not on Chicago, however, but on 
Lincoln . . . His thoughts were in Lincoln... 

He had kept pace with the growth of the city. 
Besides the Waterman department store, which, since 
its inception, had increased to three times its former 
size, he had a substantial interest in a packing plant 
and was the controlling owner of a wholesale grocery. 
. . . There was his house, a farm that he had recently 
purchased where he had of late been spending his Sun- 
day forenoons, the new building—not yet finished .. . 

Was he going to look after his affairs from Chicago? 
Was he going to sell? It would be no easy matter to 
sell quickly and advantageously . . . Nearly a quar- 


268 Gop oF MiGHT 


ter of a century had gone into the rearing of these 
things . . . He was forty ... 
To sell... 


II. 


Chicago had no antidote for his pain... 

“Tf you are coming here to escape prejudice,” Na- 
than Wertheim, a wholesaler to whom Samuel had 
confided his plans, said, “‘you will meet with no better 
success than the prophet Jonah did when he fled to 
Tarshish to escape from the presence of the Lord . . .” 

They were at lunch in a restaurant on Randolph 
Street. Wertheim was a man past sixty. Samuel had 
known him for more than ten years. It was the first 
time the subject of their race had come up between 
thems. 

“Yes, it is useless to try to escape,”’ Mr. Wertheim 
continued in a fatherly sort of voice. “Why not learn 
to grin and bear it? Jews must be strong! .. .” 

Samuel hesitated a single instant and then explained: 
It was not for himself he was trying to escape this 
prejudice, but for the sake of his wife . . . She was 
Christian ... 

The wholesaler’s eyes opened wide and he regarded 
Waterman gravely ... 

“That makes a difference,” he said, taking a deep 
breath. ‘Have you—children?”’ 

Samuel gave the ages of his son, of his daughter .. . 

Mr. Wertheim’s hand with the cigar in it shook per- 
ceptibly as he listened. 


Gop oF MIGHT 269 


“Of course that does make a difference,” he reiter- 
ated, avoiding, however, Samuel’s gaze, as a doctor 
might when delivering an unfavorable enue ae to a 
patient . 

They sateited their coffee and rose to go. At a 
cross street they parted, the wholesaler shaking Water- 
man’s hand warmly. _Samuel, however, was con- 
scious of a sudden barrier between them . . . It was 
not like the barrier between Jew and Christian, but 
still a barrier . . . Wertheim was a Jew and he, Sam- 
uel, had a Christian wife . . . It was war and people 
ranged themselves on one side, on the other . . . One 
was either a Jew or a Christian . . . In-between was 
No Man’s Land . . . He was in No Man’s Land... 

Theodore Stone had been right . . . Chicago was 
no solution... 

The crisis between Jew and Christian, in fact, was 
vastly more acute in Chicago than Samuel had ever 
known it to be in Lincoln . . . The line of demarka- 
tion between the two was more decisive .. . Preju- 
dice was cosmopolitan . . . It pervaded all classes of 
society and manifested itself in all avenues of life . . . 

It was even aired in some of the newspapers .. . 

In printed articles, in letters to the editor, Christian 
men and women were discussing their Jewish neigh- 
_bors, as if the latter were a strange phenomenon that 
had suddenly dropped down from another planet— 
something they had never seen before and did not 
know how to establish contact with... 

Not since he had been a child in the Russian pale 


270 Gop oF MIGHT 


had Samuel seen the ‘Jewish question” discussed in 
print in just such tones... 

When the wholesaler had left him Samuel sought 
out a telegraph office and sent Jessie a brief wire say- 
ing he would not be back for a day or two yet... 
His plans were dashed, but he could not bring himself 
to go home in the state of mind he wasin... 

Something had gone out of his life ...A hope 
died, a light had been extinguished . . . He wanted 
time to think, to reconcile himself, adjust himself .. . 
He must adjust himself... 

He strolled on aimlessly for hours... 

Late in the afternoon he found himself on the west 
side, in the exclusively Jewish section of the city. Since’ 
the death of his uncle he had not seen a Yiddish 
journal. He now bought a number of them, and over 
a cup of coffee and a sandwich, in one of the ghetto 
restaurants, perused their contents .. . 

It was one agonized plaint ... 

“Faults,” a writer in one of these papers exclaimed, 
“which all humans are heir to, when observed in a 
Jew are at once accounted as ‘Jewish’ faults . . . Am- 
bitions which in people of other races are considered 
natural, even desirable, when exhibited by a member 
of the Hebrew race are put down as “‘Jewish’ aggres- 
siveness ... What in others are accounted lofty and 
inspiring qualities—perseverance, painstaking appli- 
cation to work in hand, foresight—when possessed by 
a Jew are branded as artifice . . . Our pain is consid- 
ered asham . . . Our blood—water .. .” 


Gop or Micut 271 


Another paper detailed indignities: Jews were be- 
ing discriminated against in the New World as they 
had been in the Old . .. Banks and other large busi- 
ness institutions were closing their doors against Jew- 
ish employees . . . Schools and universities were dis- 
criminating against Jewish brains . . . Jews were ex- 
cluded from hotels and apartment houses . . . Pro- 
tOCOIS iy.) Henry Ford)... 7) The: Ku Klux.) 

The Jewish dead in the Great War, Jewish sacri- 
fices, Jewish loyalty, were invoked as a defense, as am- 
munition . . . The bodies of the dead were used as a 
shield, to gain respite for the living .. . 

A wave of vast helplessness, of tragic humiliation, 
Swept over Samuel, engulfed him... 

How base and ignoble life could be made... 


It was twilight when he came out of the restaurant. 
Evening was falling . . . He continued his rambling 
through the ghetto streets . . . Strains that seemed 
far off and yet familiar suddenly reached his ears . 
They were the muffled voices of Jews, praying... 
He was in front of a synagogue . . . People were go- 
ing into the synagogue: men and women ... 

He stood still, trying to recall something . . . Mo- 
ments passed . . . His frame, as if in response to a 
reminiscent summoning, swung forward to the door 
of the synagogue. He opened it, entered... 

Inside he stood still, hesitant .. . 

The verger, on perceiving a stranger, motioned to 


272 Gop oF MIGHT 


Samuel to follow, and led him to within a few steps 
of the altar... 

Candles were lit... The cantor, his face and 
beard half hidden in the prayer-shawl, was chanting 
“God of Might .. .” 

“God of Might .. .” 

It was so long, so long ago since Samuel had heard 
the prayer. The words of it had completely escaped 
him ... But it did not matter . . . He found words, 
other words, his own words . . . He was swaying with 
the rest of the congregation .. . 

“God of Might,” he mumbled, “give me might .. . 
Give me might .. .” 


THE END. 


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